Attributes are attributes.

Tech trees (perks) are tech trees.

One is a list of character stats that can use various systems for implementation (some are more realistic than others). The other is a system for unlocking new abilities (in which attributes can be shoehorned in a fake and contrived manner).

If BGS wants to gut character development and the previous attributes system (one that could very closely reflect real life if it were tweaked) and put in it's place some contrived system that dolls out plus-ups and life meter bonuses....hey, that is up to them. It's a game so realism isn't all that important anyway.

BGS cannot make everyone happy. On one end of the spectrum you have those of us that are hoping for gamng systems that trend to the more realistic, mental, and life-like experience. We will be disappointed when BGS cannot fully live up to our expectations. At the same time we also must consider the opposite side of the spectrum. The opposite side, you know, the budding psychopath's and knuckle-draggers that haunt this site drooling over beheading, dismemberment, and finishing moves, don't give a hoot about character and for them perks are just fine. But, that said, I'm sure all of their dreams will not be completely met either.

In the end 95% of the game will still be awesome even if they fail in such a ridiculous manner in 5% of the game. That is still an A in my book.

I approve of refusing to post this insightful comment on the removal of attributes in one of the open threads on this topic.

omg!! sTop reposting stuff that is already been discussed! Old news! We have an active forum for this!

Whatever.

TES has never really done them right anyway. Perks(Techs? Abilities? Feats?) add more options for customization then in previous games. So I'm fine.

I understand why they were removed. If you want attributes so bad, there's this game called Dark Souls coming out, you might like it.

They're gone. We aren't getting them back. The game still works. Get over it.

/thread

Threads about attributes are threads about attributes. There are plenty of other places to discuss this. Pick one.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1181527-wonder-why-they-took-out-attributes-iii/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1180946-perks-vs-attributes/
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1181094-removing-attributes-is-a-mistake/

Last link's locked but it has a whopping 11 pages of personal opinions. We don't need a thread defending Bethesda, bashing Bethesda, or expressing how you feel on the matter. It's all been said before. Please use search next time. These clutter the board and the subject is really just flame bait.

Attributes are not and never will be realistic - they can be implemented in ways that are more or less realistic, but they aren't any more realistic than perks - and in fact less so on average, I'd think.

When increasing my strength, I do more melee damage. I don't really gain any flashy moves, I just hit things harder - no matter how long I've used the weapon I'm using, I will never pick up a new method of using it. I just happen to beat things in the face with my axe/mace/sword/chair/piece of rock/fist/flagon and do more damage from it.

With the perk system, not only do I gain more general effectiveness with my weapon, but I branch out my knowledge of that weapon and actually modify my fighting methodology to implement more than just slash-stab-sweep-block. I accumulate knowledge that leads to more efficient combat styles, and in turn become a more effective combatant - but I might not master all angles of my weapon. Say, for instance, you gain a few stabbing flourished with a sword, but neglect to take bonuses to, say, slashing (these are just hypotheticals, I have no idea what the perks will actually be like). In addition, I pick up some extras for my mobility and use of light armor, and maybe a parrying perk or two. Now I'm a competent fencer, but I'm not near as capable at slashing as my colleague who focuses on that more aggressive style of combat. This is because I spent time studying and practicing a different aspect of fighting with a sword than him.

To return to the original example, with just a Strength score and a Long Blade skill, we'd both be equally skilled at both slashing and stabbing - a scimitar or longsword would feel as right in my hand as a saber - a saber in his as much as his chosen weapons. Despite us focusing on wholly different aspects of the use of the sword.

Which seems more realistic? (Taking into account, of course, that neither can ever truly simulate the real world to any genuine degree of depth at this point.)

:foodndrink:

You are falling into the same fallacy that many here seem to be unable to understand or get away from. Attributes and perks are not comparable. They are completely different things. Attributes will never be real because they are modifiers to use when simulating a real life experience. The difference is level of realism of the system put in place to simulate those modifiers. Perks, as a tech tree, are a decidedly poor system (for simulating attributes! They are GREAT for other things like unlocking abilities!). The previous system BSG used was more realistic and had a hundred areas it could have improved upon to make it even better.

Instead of improving. BSG decided to scrap the system and opt for one that is less realistic. So, in this specific avenue of gameplay they are opting more a more devolved and simple minded approach. Oh well...so if life. :confused:

For you to say perks are more realistic makes no sense. Unless you have an example of a trusty perkolator in your possession that you use to build muscles in lieu of exercising to get stronger then your comment holds no water.

Bigger muscles will lead to more damage but if you don't have any skill in a Sword then you won't be hitting anybody on the battlefield. Perks help with that as they are training Feats that allow you to get stronger.

I'm not sure that anyone who responded actually read the entire OP..... They just saw a few key words and started trotting out the rhetoric.

Might as well be posting on a religion board or a politics board........

Anyway - even with the energy I've invested in attempting to debate some of the issues that have cropped up around the game (and will probably invest in later issues as well), I mostly agree with the OP. When I first played Oblivion (I've played TES games since Daggerfall was new) I loathed it so much I turned it off and never even touched it for something close to a year. I finally tried again after the GOTY edition came out, and while I still really dislike some parts of it, I've resigned myself to it, carved out some ways to enjoy it, and have well over 1000 hours invested into it. I won't be surprised if Skyrim is much the same, on all counts.

So, to me at least, 95% might be an overly optimistic number, but the point remains.

Except you are exercising to get stronger. Where do you think that One Handed Sword skill comes from, or that Heavy Armor? Whence comes your powers over the mystical if not for repetitious use and studious inquiry into their arts? You don't grind perks to level up or anything like that - you use your skills. Perks represent the payoff, beyond simple numerical bonuses, of that effort and inquest. If you don't raise your skills, you don't level up - if you don't level up, you get no perks - if you get no perks, you remain an unskilled amateur. You can't take the perk system in a total vacuum, which is what you're trying to do, ignoring all the connected mechanics.

Regardless of how realistic you manage to pull out an Attribute system, you have to realize it is always going to be a flat value - blanket skill capability. Solely adhering to attributes and skills, in order to build the proper amount of customizability to properly represent the effects of focused study - or jack-of-all trades studying, for that matter - you would need a skill system with enough density to compare to planetary cores. Long Blade - Slashing. Long Blade - Stabbing. Long Blade - Parrying. Heavy Armor - Blow Absorption.

Perks are a more elegant method of handling the exact same thing. They allow you to focus and specialize, becoming quite skilled in the areas you choose to work on - or to generalize and never attain quite expert capability in any given skill or action, but be capable of performing adequately at a broad number of them.

:facepalm:
You are describing a scenario that is even more fake and contrived than previous games.

A person that is very strong and agile but unskilled with a sword will most certainly be able to wield a sword on a battlefield. They might overpower weaker more skilled opponents and will generally beat unskilled, weak opponents.

These are dimensions that are lost if you scrap strength and agility and rely solely on skill perks and life meter bonuses. Again, this is not a total loss. But you should not be so vain to ignore the fact that it is less realistic and less dimensioned.

Having played TES games since Morrowind, I never expected that. "Realistic" and "Life like" aren't something I've associated with the games, outside of Oblivion's landscape graphics.


On the other hand...


...not one of them either.

-----

I'm looking forward to trying the new system.

Why?

Because Oblivion's attribute & leveling system was a massive exercise in metagaming. Everything revolved around getting the ideal +5 attribute bonuses (but only on three attributes at a time, had to make sure you didn't waste too much gain in the other stats, or you'd lose ground)..... had to pick the right Major skills (ideally, ones you'd never use in normal play, but that you could "train" when you needed to), had to keep track of where all your skill gains were (so you'd know what stat bonuses you'd get next level, and when it was safe to "force" the next level through training).... honestly, it got kind of tedious, and really pulled you out of actually playing the game, instead of playing the game's rules (metagaming).

So, yeah. Not having attributes will feel a bit odd (since they're pretty standardized, cliche, stereotyped, etc, in every other RPG), but I'm hoping that it ends up being an improvement over the constant number-watching of Oblivion (and MW, to a lesser extent).


And come on now.... none of it was "realistic". In real life, you can't improve all of your "stats" like that - everyone has different potentials and maximums in the things they can do, different things they're better and worse at. No one can become "perfect" (all 100s) in everything. And certainly not just by practicing some professional skills over and over again (but only in certain proportions!).

I would think that a person that is very strong and agile but unskilled with a sword would most certainly be able to wield a sword on a battlefield; but would most likely get disarmed and then skewered by the weaker more skilled opponents.

Am I going to have to get a perk to be more balanced? Am I going to have to get a perk to jump higher? Am I going to have to perk up in order to be rewarded for using the skills of being a real life person interacting with the world? Am I going to have to get out my trusty spreadsheets in order to determine what magic perks can be done away with to ensure that my mage that has been running back and forth from one side of the country to the other battling dragons has some semblance of strength or is he going to be as weak and unbalanced as some bookworm that's never left the library?

Will my mage (with no intelligence or will power attribute) be able to dangerously chug fortifiy willpower/intelligence potions, taking their conciousness beyond the scope of the normal reality where the only the uber high power potions/incantations/spells can be done?

Or will all of this be lamely confined in a magicka meter and skill perk? (perk: press B for Awesome spell!)

we really dont have choice but to trust them at this point.. and anyway.. they know more about making a game than we do.. if developers listened to the "popular" ideas for games then they would break it , in some huge unforeseeable way, they know this, they know what they are doing, then WANT to make the best game they can, they WANT us to be happy, cas if we arnt then they doing get there money , since this is a pretty big deal im just going to assume they though really long and hard about this and decided it was for the best, i think the new system of perks and stuff will make up for it and i presonally like the idea of the new "no class just play" system, on oblivion it took me like 5 different character (with 10-30 hours in each) before i figured out what i wanted .

Exactly how I feel. I welcome change.

First - there's nothing about the game that requires that. I never do it, at all. Granted - working around it requires metagaming the character build, but once I've done that, I just ignore all the rest and play the game and it always works out.

Second, and more to the point - I don't mean to target you specifically, since I've seen many people advance similar arguments, and I've questioned them before, but have yet to get an answer - what you describe here is the central flaw in the Oblivion major/minor leveling system. What does that have to do with attributes?

If, for example, they were to institute a purely perk-based system, but to retain the old major/minor system, wherein you choose a number of major skills, all those skills increase at a faster rate than the rest, and when you get some number of major skill increases, you level up, then the problems you describe would still exist. The replacement of attributes with perks would make no difference at all. You'd still be leveling too quickly, since it would depend on the rapidly increasing major skills, leaving the slower increasing minor skills - even the ones that you deemed important and used - lagging. Your leveling would outstrip your skill increases, just as it does in Oblivion. The exact same problems that existed in Oblivion would still exist. So what does any of that have to do with the value or lack thereof of attributes?

I do hope this method of creating character during the game will prove satisfying, since creating the character at the beginning, without attributes, will seem empty and lacking. I did like my creation screens.

I might have touched a nerve with the "knuckle-dragging" comment.

Ah, it's refreshing to see someone approach this issue with such fair, unbiased arguments.

Wait wait no, I gots more sarcasm in me.


Right then, glad someone finally cleared that up for me. What should we discuss next?

Splitting your post up into smaller quotes because I responded point by point - not trying to misrepresent your argument or anything like that.



I don't imagine there'll be balance perks, particularly, though maybe under armor (more agile use of armor = harder to knock over because you're more in control of your momentum). Perhaps pick up a perk for blocking or parrying to allow you to stop those knock-down blows before they hit you? Why satisfy yourself with just one way to go about doing something when you could approach the problem from multiple angles?



The removal of Acrobatics means I'd say probably not, but the gameworld probably isn't going to be made to keep things from people who can't bound over buildings like Superman - the ability to jump probably simply wouldn't be that relevant of a skill. And if there WAS a perk to increase jump height, I don't see anything much wrong it - though I have no idea how they'd fit it under any of the current skills.



Well... why not? You learn by doing as much as you learn by studying, don't you? Frankly, I've only recently started to learn to cook and was just learning how to boil rice a couple months ago. It used to take me hours to chop vegetables for a dish - I was incapable of making supper in a timely manner at all. Now, I'm still slow, but I've cut prep time for most things down to an hour at most through the use of new techniques I've naturally picked up just from using the knife. If the overall skill is Cooking and I've been working on it for a while, I'd consider that taking a perk in knife handling.



I think you're overthinking things - spreadsheeting probably only matters in particular when you're optimizing a character, and that is certainly fun to some people but you seem to want more immersion and RP. To that end, why bother worrying about how many perks you can "spare" to get a character that fits your concept? Make choices as you're given them and build your character organically, then deal with the challenges that arise from inefficiencies in that arrangement (or, perhaps, enjoy the benefits of unexpected synergy). Isn't that the point of roleplaying? If Beth manages to balance the game well enough, it shouldn't be possible to gimp your character into unplayability merely by taking a few perks for flavor instead of optimization.



You could just represent that a different way and get the same effect - chug Fortify Magicka and Fortify (Skill) potions. Once you're sitting at Destruction 150 and have a pool of Magicka as deep as the sea, I'd say you're capable of performing feats of magic far in excess of anything a mere regular mage is capable of. You're on a different plane of existence - the only difference is what you're buffing, not what you can do with it. It means you have to use more focused buffing items, yes, but that's a relatively minor thing - I mean, if you're a skilled enough alchemist you should have no trouble churning out skill and magicka-fortifying concoctions. Hell, after all that time spent focusing on the craft, you might even pick up a perk or two towards it to help your output. The sky's the limit.

EDIT: Updated my post to reflect changes in yours.

Yeah, I think one topic on the attributes issue is enough for now, not several. http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1181527-wonder-why-they-took-out-attributes-iii/.