I've been thinking about how they were able to get rid of Attributes (if they in fact did) and have come to the conclusion that they could make them invisible but not really get rid of them. That leads to the question;

Well how do you determine base and derived attributes then?

Here is what I've come up with so far;


Body Type
Strength, Speed, Jump and Run would be determined on a sliding scale based on the body type you choose. Agility, Athletics and Acrobatics are out. Body type would only determine base stats and the difference between high and low could be as little as 10 points but would still make a significant difference between starting characters. This will augment the racial distinctions to allow different classes of the same race to feel different at lower levels.

Bulky upper body type =.. High Dmg......Low Rate of Att
Med upper body type = ....Med Dmg......Med Rate of Att
Lean upper body type = ....Low Dmg......High Rate of Att

Bulky lower body type = ..High Jump...., Low Run Spd
Med lower body type = ....Med Jump......Med Run Spd
Lean lower body type = ....Low Jump......High Run Spd

Race
Intelligence and Willpower are determined by Race (Race could also effect all base stats directly)

Stamina Replaces Endurance

Encumbrance is determined by 50% Str 50% Stamina

And of course perks during game play will give all characters the opportunity to increase all of these above base starting levels.

Reputation replaces Personality,Mercantile and Speechcraft and initial disposition is based on race. You have a different reputation with groups and with individual NPCs. Beyond base racial disposition all persuasion and bater depends entirely on your interactions with others.

There are a few holes in there, unanswered questions. Thoughts? What am I missing?

I hope body type doesn't determine attributes, I choose how my character looks based on how I want my character to look, not what stats I want my character to have. I don't want to be forced to change the way my character looks to get a character with the abilities I want. Now, if given the choice, I might choose a body type that fits the character I'm going for anyway, but that should be a choice that's up to me to make, not made by the game for me.

Now, if attributes have indeed been removed, my hope is that perks effectively replace them, as well as potentially giving other benefits, depending on which ones you choose. For example, the game could have a "strength" perk that you can choose, which has multiple levels, for every level you take, your damage in melee combat and your maximum carry weight would increase. Perks should also be able to have other benefits beyond just functioning as attributes though, like perks in Fallout. This way, you could choose whether you want to improve your character's base stats, or get some fancier benefit. I would also say that the choice of race could have a more minor effect on this, much like how in past Elder Scrolls games, the race you choose would determine your starting attributes. But the effect should not be so large that you cannot make up for it later on with your choice of attributes, lest the game effectively force players to adhere to the stereotypes of the race they choose.

But body type would only determine base stats and the difference between high and low could be as little as 10 points but would still make a significant difference between starting characters. This will augment the racial distinctions to allow different classes of the same race to feel different at lower levels.

That would make it to crazy even for me, and I love hardcoe games.

In Oblivion attributes where way less influencing than they where in morrowind, lossing all extra effects over 100. I think removing them completelly is the next step and indeed I think this change will have a similar impact to the one happened with Oblivion. The only concern for me is what will happen with encumbrance (related to perks? to fatigue? equal for everybody?...)

I personally believe the body type will only be a visual thing. I think the performance of the character is entirely decided on his/her skills

Well, of course we'll have to wait to see, but I agree with the point that picking your body type will only be a cosmetic thing. My prediction/suspicion is that attributes will be in the game, but will increase passively as your skills increase. Things will encumbrance, walking speed, etc. will still be linked to attributes.

But I wouldn't be surprised if I've got that wrong, either.

It's skills that had no effect over 100 in Oblivion, not the attributes. Although both were technically capped at 100 anyway, so having them over 100 wasn't exactly part of the game design in the first place. Also the only attribute related effect they removed was because of "abuse", mostly linked to alchemy and magic (willpower and intelligence). The other attributes were still doing the same thing as before (with different scale factor because of different game balance).


Oh and please people stop the "It didn't show in the list of available menu", neither did the Log and it was mentioned in the magazine. Skills, Inventory, Map, Magic are the same 4 tabs that appeared in Oblivion and they had subdivisions:

Skills had attributes, skills, faction and random stats stuff like "number of kill".
Inventory had sorting tabs.
Map had world map, local map, current quest, all quests.
Magic had all spells, some sorting and effects currently on the player (constant, power, buff, debuff, etc).


Going by the amazing logic to claim there is no more attributes, we don't have join-able factions either.

I think the attributes will be like this.

• Agility: Affects damage dealt by ranged weapons, and your steadiness in combat. *
  
• Endurance: Affects your total Fatigue and the rate at which it regenerates. *
  
• Intelligence: Affects your total magicka.
  
• Luck: Affects everything you do in a small way.
  
• Personality: Affects your ability to gain information and better prices from NPCs.
  
• Speed: Affects how fast you move.
  
• Strength: Affects your total encumbrance, your total Fatigue and the damage done by melee attacks.
  
• Willpower: Affects the rate at which magicka regenerates as well as your total Fatigue.

the ones who is marked by an * is changed from the ones we saw in Oblivion.

No, I do not want to be restricted to a certain playstyle because I want my character to look a certain way. Anyways, if you look at Olympic high jumpers, they are rarely ever stocky. Most of them are tall and lanky. Not sure why they wouldn't jump as high in the videogame. Generally bulky people are both slower than and unable to jump as high as toned people. Ok ok I'm seeing now. Sorry about that, didn't notice "lower body type".

I really wish people would stop thinking that a bulky muscular body means you're slow. Who do you think punches faster, a lean boxer or a muscular boxer? Who runs faster, a lean runner or a muscular runner?

More muscle = more pressure, force and speed of movement.

There are exceptions to every stereotype but they exist because they are for the most part true. Aside from the fact that the fastest people on earth are all lean athletes it is just necessary to simplify a little for the sake of game play.

Bulky - http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/17779.gif

Lean - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_6CPyU5XZ9Sk/SVEMgSJDeMI/AAAAAAAAAo0/-JgPrI1DPHk/s400/usain-bolt.jpg

too late to suggest this kind of stuff they already made their system for sure.

Dude the propose of this thread is not to get Bethesda to do it this way. It's speculation on just how they did do it knowing what we know about the changes made to the system.

I'm expecting attributes, but they'll be 1 to 10, not to 100.

Usain Bolt is not fast because he is skinny, the man is five centimeters short of being two meters tall. He has extremely long legs, and he has a bunch of muscle, he is a muscular guy.

In fact most sprinters are immensely muscular. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Bolt_2007.2.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Osaka07_D6A_M200M_nearfinish.jpg

Height, body fat percentage, muscularity all of these things play a role in determining a persons celerity.

It'd be incredibly frustrating if my character was a lumbering oaf of a man who attacked slowly because I selected a muscular upper body. When in fact the opposite is often the case.

You're right, there's extremes on both sides, if a man is so bulky his thighs collide when he walks obviously he will run slowly (or perhaps not be able to run at all), but if he's so skinny there's barely any muscle on his bones at all he won't have the strength to propell himself forward.

I don't necessarily disagree with your statement, but I do disagree with your generalization. It might perhaps be prudent to generalize alittle for the sake of gameplay, I just strongly disagree with your classifications.

Lets say I wanted to be a strong Nord who decimates his foes with wild rapid swings of his warhammer. I boost my "bulky upper body" so as to get a stronger upperbody to be able to handle the massive weight of the warhammer and swing it faster, only to find boosting strength according to the system made by you makes me attack slower... If I were to follow your system, I'd have had to choose a lean upper body to be able to swing the warhammer faster.

I'm sorry, I don't disagree with your sentiment, I think you're on to something; but your "system" is severely broken.

Interesting ideas, but I wouldn't want character appearance to have any influence on stats, or vice versa.

Is the existence of "Body Types" confirmed?

I think its gona be more like a hybrid of fallout and elder scrolls in that each race/six starts with a base set of stats and you get a few points to spend as you please. and thats mostly it sept for a little bit of very hard to get and SPENDY ways to get a bit more.