This is the difference: In Morrowind, self control (or certain mods) could result in highly distinct characters from beginning to end. In Skyrim, you necessarily will only have distinct characters at the end. It is impossible for them to be different in the beginning.

So let's tally up the points

Morrowind:
-Distinct beginning character (+1)
-Possibly distinct end charcter, though not a result encouraged by the game (+.5)

Total: 1.5

Skryim:
-Non-distinct beginning character (+0)
-Distinct end character (+1)

Total: 1

So, Morrowind's system has a greater potential for unique characters than does Skyrim. The problem is, the game did not encourage this by making it possible to max out every available stat (and compelling players to do that if they wanted to maximize their character's success). The solution is not to remove starting distinction and add guaranteed ending distinction. The solution is to tweak the existing system so character distinction is maintained throughout.

I agree with the geste of what youre saying, but not the particulars.
I shall think it over and make a better reply when I have had some time to think.
After all, I had to look up 'banaustic'.

The "quickly! define yourself" is a fun game to play.
It went like this for me:
Gender, age, profession, family.
I wonder how other people score.

Maybe I'm archaic as well, as I like the mechanic you do not. I don't consider attributes "micromanaging aspects of gameplay". I see them as way of defining my characters progression in the game. It is a game afterall. It is part of the enjoyment, as much as the story, of seeing those numbers rise, gaining levels to show my character becoming more powerful, finding new weapons and armor (with those dang numbers again) that do more damage or have greater enchantments.

That is why when you ask us to "Quickly: Define youself" I did not list numbers because real world we have no numbers that define ourselves unless you count things that people use to define us like income, or education, etc... I could say that I am strong, but if you look at me you may say I'm not. Stand me next to a bodybuilder and you can see the difference.

Sadly, in the game you are represented by a body that does not reflect your stats. You could have 100 strength and have the same body as an NPC with 30 strength. You could be smart, but you wouldn't know that in the game without the numbers. Saying you are smart, with no numbers to back it up, you might call roleplaying, but the game doesn't know that. It needs numbers. The game cannot reflect accurately who you are without them. And in turn we define our characters by how those numbers improve.



I can agree with this mostly. I still feel that part of what drives people to play is not just the story. They can read a book for that. But the progression that their character makes, via stats, weapons, etc...thoughout the story.

when people get this through their thick skulls and realize this isnt 2021, then maybe just maybe we won't have strawmen statements saying how D&D (of which by the way TES derived from Blooming into the massive self sufficient Cherryblossom Oak Tree Hybrid it is today) it is, and how visuals are looking "forward" seriously Attributres are spreadsheety and archaic but Perk Tick boxes that give instant boosts are not? like really....

The game is not you, its not connected to you, so until their are advanced expert systems, that actively monitor the player and can realize the players "role playing" into the game, then fine sure numbers being shown to the player are no longer neccesary, but until then NUMBERS being SHOWN to the player so that they know what their character can and cannot do in the Game by the GAMES rules will be around as long as this series intend to continue the RPG part of its Genre.

i agree
i dont really care if we lose some math and numbers
but the lack of hisrtory and worldly depth in obliv ruined the experience for me
and the fact that beth hasnt seemed as excited about skyrims plot (except dragons, god forbid i dont mention those) as the new combat or magic or other systems worries me

People talk about complexity and yet I've never seen any clear definition for it. Any definition would obviously be more or less subjective. One common mistake is to equate complexity with quality. High complexity doesn't automatically make a game better than a less complex one. This is especially true for the kind of complexity that never actually factors into the gameplay. The fact is that the more complex game is (and by complexity I mean that it has a lot of variables like skills, attributes etc.) more difficult it is to actually differentiate them from one another and succesfully factor them in to the gameplay. The complexity then just makes the game bloated with useless or trivial stuff. I think "less is more" is a very good dictum to go by in game design, to use it as a starting point and then increase the complexity if that is needed. That's how I view the "streamlining" in Skyrim - removing useless stuff and concentrating on differenting the remaining stuff from each other and factoring them into the gameplay as well as possible. That's elegant design and I like it.

well said

but now some kid will spring up to defend OB's shallow characters and why numerical values for the in game mechanics should remain for all time.

in fact more attributes does not equal more "depth" it might mean more complexity (the bad kind) but not more depth unless u want to spend all day calculating numbers instead of actually playing the game and doing challenges and actions.

what I lament is the lose of lets say more weapon options or more armor types BUT not the text or numbers, example is medium armor !! why lament its lose if we get as much armor variety without the skill? is it the skill that matters or the actual variety of in game armor???

all in all people should judge the game by its story, game play, combat, quests, immersion value...etc

So basically the OP wants TES to be Heavy Rain with swords?

ty for saving me the time to explain this :wub:

I give you this owl as a prize :spotted owl:

My defining of myself went in this order:

Name, six, Age, Race, Family, Interests.

OP i agree .harvey i agree.Ive said this for a while charicter unquieness is the goal of attributes in the end .Am i saying there isnt a way to make attributes contibute to this no.But they havent all that much in the past .My 100 speed naked orc felt just as fast as my 100 speed khajitt and every other charicter.People will say well naturaly my kahjitt should be faster than my orc but the player charicter is always faster than things in the game anyhow .I could outrun a wolve with my orc when he was still slow.We wont have a player vs player race so it makes little differance.In order to get distinction you had to roleplay only certain quests because if youre strength was maxed of course youre gonna add to stamina or speed.

The perk system because you can get only so many in a play through will allow for maxed out charicters to be more functionaly distinguished charicters.This in turn allows for more diversity being strong in an area and weak in another to be more likely .Which to me is the purpose of a properly working attribute system giving youre charicter a build that fits his style of play .I just want more diverseity and i think we will get it.I could actually care less if they did it by fixing the attribute system or by perks a combo of the two or some other means.I think functionaly this system will be superior for charicter diversity more so than we have seen in the past.

Yes, precisely. Complete with a Dragonborn - striptease scene.

With a mod and in game perks Skyrim now takes the lead.

My god, sometimes a feel like we're in the Elder Scrolls right now with all these specters people are arguing against.

-Advocating the implementation of attributes does not mean implementing them in a way identical to those in past games
-Advocating for player distinction at creation does not necessitate a tradeoff between that and character distinction at level 50
-It does not mean we are okay with having every character able to reach level 100 in every attribute
-It does not mean we are okay with having every character able to reach level 100 in every skill
-It does not mean we are fundamentally against the inclusion of perks
-It does not mean we want every character to easily outpace any of the local fauna

It would be super sweet if everyone could actually comment on what was being said instead of arguing with fairies.

EDIT:

Alehm: Prove modding in unique character builds at creation is possible. Also, prove that mods available for Skyrim will outmatch those for Morrowind/Oblivion. If you want to claim mods will fix it, you have to apply the same principles to a Morrowind system.

This reminds of a game I played briefly. Blacklight: Tangodown was some cheap FPS that boasted extensive weapon customization, but all parts of the gun affected just 3 vaguely defined stat bars. There was no fun in choosing parts because you barely had any idea what you changed, and you were constantly trying to seconds guess weather your gun was more or less effective than it was the last match. I would have been much happier knowing the exact details of each part, such as bullet spread, damage, and recoil because I'd have something concrete to know that I had improved, instead of something vague like "mobility" and "survivability"

Honestly I don't think Oblivion was quite the right medium for such an exchange.

Mankar: Ask yourself! How is it that mighty gods die, yet the Daedra stand incorruptible? How is it that the Daedra forthrightly proclaim themselves to man, while the gods cower behind statues and the faithless words of traitor-priests? It is simple... they are not gods at all. The truth has been in front of you since you first were born: the Daedra are the true gods of this universe. Julianos, Dibella and Stendarr are all Lorkhan's betrayers, posing as divinities in a principality that has lost its guiding light. What are Scholarship, Love and Mercy when compared to Fate, Night and Destruction?

Martin: They say syndicates of wizards have led a boycott of Imperial goods in the land of the Altmer.

Mankar: I've heard others say the same.

Martin: Bye!


I don't think he meant that Arthurian legends were sterile, I think he meant Oblivion was a sterilized version of the pop-culture middle ages, rather than something original. On that note, though, I am a little sick of seeing the old "Morrowind was unique, Cyrodiil was just medieval Europe" argument. The real European middle ages were much weirder than Morrowind.

Ah the war of words confrontation, or indeed a single twist in plot. How I searched, how I yearned, yet every time I thought things could take an interesting turn I was thwarted by the inane grin and speech of another glowing orange head. How on earth could the doubtlessly great writing originally submitted for the game be reduced to, or allowed to be reduced to something more akin to the stories found in books aimed at pre-school. Even then, Dr Seuss would have wept.


After all, how do you really quantify intelligence, willpower, or charisma?
I have some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is that your school, your employer, your peers, your government, 1,000s of magazines, advertising agencies, credit agencies ... and possibly even your lover grade your intelligence, willpower, charisma, assertiveness, effectiveness, athleticism, stamina, speed, strength, imagination, physical characteristics, shopping habits, internet usage, T.V. viewing habits, fashion sense, alcohol consumption, hair style, cosmetic use, food preferences... Every single aspect you and your life style is graded somewhere on a scale of A to F, or 0 to 10, or 1 to 100, or dinky, inky stinky, two cs in a k. This is the 21st century, everybody needs to understand ratings and gradings and how they they apply, denying they exist is futile, indeed understanding a simple metric and how it applies to a real world, or game world attribute should be second nature to anyone born in the past 60 years. The good news? I lied, there is none on this matter.


In my opinion, managing stat numbers and placing bonemold greaves with an imperial chain cuirass doesn't provide for deep, vivid gameplay. That's just banaustic tedium.
You are entitled to your opinion. Others, some of your fellow gamers, love the numbers, some like the dressing up and some just like the thrill of finding a item, a piece from a set even when it is no use to them. Does any of this add depth? Most certainly for some.

And full of famine, plauge, war, corruption, and all sorts of not so Oblivion things.

It isn't the mere existence of numbers in the game that are "offensive", it's the constant incremental reminders of your progress, or lack thereof, that make it tedious and lead to "Powergaming". I'd much prefer a somewhat vague "status bar" that doesn't give you a number, just a general indication, but the numbers would still be there in the background, still doing their things and making a deep and detailed RPG experience possible, just not in your face as they were in past games.

The whole point of swapping those Bonemold Greaves for a set of Imperial Chain greaves isn't so much a matter of numbers and stats to me as one of "What would the character reasonably be expected to prefer?". In typical circumstances, my Dunmer character would probably favor the Bonemold item over the foreign intrusion, while my Imperial character would be suspicious of the odd resinous material and stick to "tried and true" chainmail. If, on the other hand, they had lots of cash and access to an expensive Orcish piece that wasn't totally out of place with the rest of their equipment, they'd probably change to it in a heartbeat because of the blatantly better stats. Survivability has its attractions, regardless of "style". IF (an unlikely "IF" at that) armor were rearranged into a broad spectrum of types, distinguished by varying balances of durability, weight, repairability, protectiveness, and price, you'd see different types of characters going for different types of armor - a thief for something light and protective, but shy on durability, because they have no intention of getting into a stand-up fight - a fighter looking for something both protective and durable, to handle a serious encounter - a Scout going with something light yet durable, beacuse it would hold up better on extended forays into the wilds, even though it might offer less actual protection, etc. The arrangement of armor stats into "beginning", "mid-game", and "end-game" sets, with plenty of advantages and almost no drawbacks to the "better" sets as they're introduced, helped remove "meaningful choice" from the last game. Either you automatically upgraded to the next "better" set to come along, or you were left behind. That just turns into a linear grind, not "character development", in my obviously abnormal opinion. I'm hoping for something more "meaningful" in Skyrim, but seeing a lot of "shiny" instead.

Since Attributes didn't require micromanagement, Im not sure where your going with that. Dumbing down is removing, or cutting things that add variety and RP potential. There's been Dumbing Down going on with Skyrim. Fact.

Of course programming relies on numbers. But why put a huge list of those numbers in front of the player?

Unlocking a new perk seems an infinitely better way of saying "You got better at this skill" than climbing from 15 to 16 in Block.

Hide the health bar and show physical damage or impairments on the character.

Get rid of stats and give the player a new usuable skill.

One is an in-game world, the other is computer mechanics. Hide the engine under the bonnet!

I'm not sure it's because of it, but I just made a post explaining that is the exact sort of thing I loathe. Like How Hellgate: London had a number that people at first thought was DPS, but turned out to be some extremely vague "rating" that wasn't useful at all. I hate when aspects of the game are obfuscated so that I can't make an informed decision.

Some things simplified, but with many more things added. A net effect of no dumbing down.

Not really. Since there's no proof of what will be taken away, or added. Going by Beth track record and PR jargon, it will most likely give us less than its predecessors. if spell creation and H2H alone dont make it, Sky will be inferior to Ob.

This guy has the right of it, not the OP.