Quit frothing at the mouth and think. : V - Skyrim

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:45 pm

you are completly ignoring why this is an issue, its not a problem specifcly because they took out X, the issue is that they replaced it with Y which does the same thing (in your own words) so why waste the time to make no change when they can use that time for adding content or improving existing content. so calling it redundant to keep attributes is just self contradiction.

Hmm.. I worded my last post wrong, let me clarify;

Y is actually a cleaner system, it's more simplified while doing the same exact feature as X. And if they tried to work on X to make it better, they probably would of ended up with Y anyways.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:13 pm

Natural abilities: strong, smart, charisma, etc are one baseline.
Skills are things learned as one goes through life. Because someone is ignorant regarding combat skills (one handed, two handed, sword, whatever) does not mean that person has no strength at carrying weight and cannot pick up a spare tire nor should it mean that if you hit a magical break point of a 30 sword you can learn park to carry more as one has nothing to do with the other.

Being healthier or having more stamina (say running the yearly IronMan) does not mean if I hit a magic break point number for one of those I can magically learn gymnastics skills where one can walk down a 3inch beam with ones eyes closed because you shot a bow a certain number of times or swung a heavy object certain number of times.

The perks are meant to simulate your specific skill progression. Starting out when you train for gymnastics you can't do a backflip but if you practice enough there will be a first backflip. Congratulations, you have gotten the backflip perk. Now keep taking the perks to improve it and you'll backflip like a pro.

» Tue May 03, 2011 11:21 am

I think everyone gets it. Lol. I think people were just having fun with the expression by using it literally.. fun, remember? Though, I could be giving too much credit?

my use was not meant as fun I was simply taking the saying and applying it to another area of the game. to which the user I quoted said was extremely irration, all I did was apply that persons pov to another area of the game to make a point that what they said was not making much sense.

» Tue May 03, 2011 12:03 am

less is more only applies if health, fatigue, magicka (edit) [as attributes] is of better quality than what we had before. in which it is is not. some times quanity is a quality. the world is not black and white, thats why I called you out when you arbitrarily posted "less is more" as if that could blanket every aspect of the game.

How is that related in anyway to anything?? What does better quality health even mean?? I', not trying to pick bones here but I just didn't understand what you were trying to get across there.

Natural abilities: strong, smart, charisma, etc are one baseline.
Skills are things learned as one goes through life. Because someone is ignorant regarding combat skills (one handed, two handed, sword, whatever) does not mean that person has no strength at carrying weight and cannot pick up a spare tire nor should it mean that if you hit a magical break point of a 30 sword you can learn park to carry more as one has nothing to do with the other.

Being healthier or having more stamina (say running the yearly IronMan) does not mean if I hit a magic break point number for one of those I can magically learn gymnastics skills where one can walk down a 3inch beam with ones eyes closed because you shot a bow a certain number of times or swung a heavy object certain number of times.

Whoever said it did?? We know nothing about encumbrance. It could be related to race, it could have perks that aren't related to skills, it could be anything. And again, we don't know how gymnastic skills will be gained, so your point was fairly moot.

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:14 pm

I disagree with you, and I have the right too, you can't call some one else invalid just because the world doesn't fit in with your vision. we disagree thats the only thing we agree about. months ago we had topics just like this and every one "oh I trust bethesda, they won't do that" but here we are, if people don't question what the devs do then they'll put in every bad idea there is before they get any feed back.

You think it's a bad idea. I don't. So why should they cater to you? Everything that YOU don't like is a bad idea, so they shouldn't do it. Right?

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:07 pm

But he wasn't talking about swords. The guy just wanted to be a Breton stronger than an Orc, or a Dark Elf faster than a Kajiit. Of course the Orc might not do more damage than the Breton, but where did anyone say it would have??

So the guy wants the game to display a number for him so that he can brag to his friends that his Orc is stronger than his friend Breton? And then I ask, if that number is unimportant because everything you need to know is found under the "sword skill" part, why should the game even try to track it?

You got an Orc that trains in warrior skills, you got a Breton of similar level that trains in the same skills. Assume the orc is "stronger" than the breton by genetics and that's all you need.

» Tue May 03, 2011 4:16 am

less is more only applies if health, fatigue, magicka (edit) [as attributes] is of better quality than what we had before. in which it is is not. some times quanity is a quality. the world is not black and white, thats why I called you out when you arbitrarily posted "less is more" as if that could blanket every aspect of the game.

That's extremely subjective and assumptive.

Also, "the world is not black and white" is such an overused phrase. Like now. When it has nothing to do with anything.

"Less is more" DOES sum things up quite nicely, I think, which is why I said it. It blankets the complaints that removing things makes the game worse or dumbed down or over-simplified.

» Tue May 03, 2011 6:55 am

Like Todd Howard puts it in several interviews, Intelligence was really only ever used to measure your Magicka. Now that this stat is increased directly, it doesn't exactly make sense to keep the attribute.

Intelligence determined your magicka pool in Oblivion. Willpower changed your regeneration rate.
How is that measured? Or do we just pick a couple of perks to fix that.

Im not against perks, they can increase customization. But 3 attributes does not model everything the old system did. They have removed customization in many places, and its not all the fault of perks, but they are removing customization to me...

» Tue May 03, 2011 8:37 am

less is more only applies if health, fatigue, magicka (edit) [as attributes] is of better quality than what we had before. in which it is is not. some times quanity is a quality. the world is not black and white, thats why I called you out when you arbitrarily posted "less is more" as if that could blanket every aspect of the game.

So nice of you to peek into the future for us and inform us how better or worse quality this new system is in its entirety as compared to the old system.

Let's think of this like reducing a Finite State Machine. If state 0 goes to state 1 goes to state 2 goes to state 3, then functionally, the machine can be reduced from {s0 -> s1 -> s2 -> s3} to {s0 -> s3}. It gets simplified, yet everything important still works the same.
And regarding attributes and the majority of what they provide, the same functionality can be given through other means. Hence simplification without overt pruning.

» Tue May 03, 2011 2:36 am

That's extremely subjective and assumptive.

Also, "the world is not black and white" is such an overused phrase. Like now. When it has nothing to do with anything.

"Less is more" DOES sum things up quite nicely, I think, which is why I said it. It blankets the complaints that removing things makes the game worse or dumbed down or over-simplified.

Less is not more in a TES game, no way to spin it.

» Tue May 03, 2011 7:06 am

So the guy wants the game to display a number for him so that he can brag to his friends that his Orc is stronger than his friend Breton? And then I ask, if that number is unimportant because everything you need to know is found under the "sword skill" part, why should the game even try to track it?

You got an Orc that trains in warrior skills, you got a Breton of similar level that trains in the same skills. Assume the orc is "stronger" than the breton by genetics and that's all you need.

The idea is that races are different.

Races without bonuses is superficial and cosmetic, there may as well be no races at all beyond the purposes of lore.

» Mon May 02, 2011 10:40 pm

Hmm.. I worded my last post wrong, let me clarify;

Y is actually a cleaner system, it's more simplified while doing the same exact feature as X. And if they tried to work on X to make it better, they probably would of ended up with Y anyways.

but it doesn't make it simpler, true, we have less attributes. the new system has imposed the role of attributes to health, fatigue and magicka, now its even more complicated because they some how have to work in the skills that the attributes governed. how will health, fatigue or magicka govern luck or encumberance. the answers so far have been, Oh just make a perk for it. that doesn't solve the problem. thats like taking a pencil from some one and giving them a pen, they both write but only one erases. perks just are not good enough to replace attributes, it will cause descrepencies in character designs.

» Mon May 02, 2011 7:33 pm

Less is not more in a TES game, no way to spin it.

Again, I'll let that slide if you think Daggerfall is the best TES game. If you think Morrowind or Oblivion is better, then you're disagreeing with yourself, because they are perfect examples of what I mean.

» Tue May 03, 2011 7:38 am

So the guy wants the game to display a number for him so that he can brag to his friends that his Orc is stronger than his friend Breton? And then I ask, if that number is unimportant because everything you need to know is found under the "sword skill" part, why should the game even try to track it?

You got an Orc that trains in warrior skills, you got a Breton of similar level that trains in the same skills. Assume the orc is "stronger" than the breton by genetics and that's all you need.

I don't really understand what you're trying to say. If you're saying that if both an Orc and a Breton trained at swords pretty much equally, then the Orc will be better than the Breton then yeah, that should follow. Which it would, because at the same level and same amount of training (assuming they both picked equivalent perks) the Orc would be better because it started with a higher one (or two) handed weapon skill.

» Tue May 03, 2011 3:09 am

Less is not more in a TES game, no way to spin it.

Actually it can be.

People are clouded by the fact that if it's an open world RPG and the Devs take something out just to make the system cleaner and simplify it more while performing the same exact function, then it's automatically a bad idea.

*Confused*

» Tue May 03, 2011 8:39 am

The idea is that races are different.

Races without bonuses is superficial and cosmetic, there may as well be no races at all beyond the purposes of lore.

We have yet to see what differences the races will have. All we know is that they'll probably start the game with different base skill levels but there might very well be more than that like Argonians underwater breathing for free or Orcs berzerk rage. But yet, whatever there is more will still be minor enough that no race will prevent you from doing any playstyle from the start and it's good.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:03 am

Less is not more in a TES game, no way to spin it.

There IS a difference between convolution and complexity. The latter is elegant, the former is undesirable. Regardless of what the convolution offers.
And I can think of lots of scenarios in which just adding content to add it (or even adding content that fits beyond certain thresholds) is a problem. Hence why Less Is More is just as applicable to TES as anywhere else.

» Mon May 02, 2011 9:34 pm

That's extremely subjective and assumptive.

Also, "the world is not black and white" is such an overused phrase. Like now. When it has nothing to do with anything.

"Less is more" DOES sum things up quite nicely, I think, which is why I said it. It blankets the complaints that removing things makes the game worse or dumbed down or over-simplified.

"less is more" is just as over used as the world is not black and white. I haven't said any thing on this thread about the changes dumbing the game down (don't put words in my mouth, another over used phrase) or that it is over simplified. what I said is that the effort the devs put into switching how skills are governed was not necessary and that we could have kept attributes and still have perks.

EDIT: besides, all you said in that post was "less is more" and did not specify in what context, if you don't specify a context people are going to assume you mean it to apply to everything.

» Tue May 03, 2011 9:06 am

Intelligence determined your magicka pool in Oblivion. Willpower changed your regeneration rate.
How is that measured? Or do we just pick a couple of perks to fix that.

Im not against perks, they can increase customization. But 3 attributes does not model everything the old system did. They have removed customization in many places, and its not all the fault of perks, but they are removing customization to me...

Maybe it's simply related to the total of all of your magic skills. We just don't know. But to say they've removed customization without knowing exactly what they've done is folly.

but it doesn't make it simpler, true, we have less attributes. the new system has imposed the role of attributes to health, fatigue and magicka, now its even more complicated because they some how have to work in the skills that the attributes governed. how will health, fatigue or magicka govern luck or encumberance. the answers so far have been, Oh just make a perk for it. that doesn't solve the problem. thats like taking a pencil from some one and giving them a pen, they both write but only one erases. perks just are not good enough to replace attributes, it will cause descrepencies in character designs.

I thought you were arguing in the other thread that TES was getting to simplified?? Now you're saying the new system is more complex?? :S

» Tue May 03, 2011 3:32 am

"less is more" is just as over used as the world is not black and white. I haven't said any thing on this thread about the changes dumbing the game down (don't put words in my mouth, another over used phrase) or that it is over simplified. what I said is that the effort the devs put into switching how skills are governed was not necessary and that we could have kept attributes and still have perks.

Then I was not putting words in your mouth. If you don't feel it's dumbing the game down or over simplifying anything, then I wasn't addressing you when I said "less is more." You're the one who challenged it.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:07 pm

Hol Christ clash of the forum veterans much? But on topic, i have to go with the OP. Attributes just don't have a place now.

» Tue May 03, 2011 5:44 am

Again, I'll let that slide if you think Daggerfall is the best TES game. If you think Morrowind or Oblivion is better, then you're disagreeing with yourself, because they are perfect examples of what I mean.

This.

» Tue May 03, 2011 8:17 am

Skyrim is streamlined and refined, not dumbed down or over-simplified. BGS has taken a quality over quantity approach. Just look at the situation regarding ride-able horses. TH has stated (in the GI podcast) that BGS is working on them but if they aren't greatly improved and comparable to the horses in RDR, they will not include them.

I believe Skyrim will be yet another stellar addition to the TES series, if not the absolute best.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:59 pm

but it doesn't make it simpler, true, we have less attributes. the new system has imposed the role of attributes to health, fatigue and magicka, now its even more complicated because they some how have to work in the skills that the attributes governed. how will health, fatigue or magicka govern luck or encumberance. the answers so far have been, Oh just make a perk for it. that doesn't solve the problem. thats like taking a pencil from some one and giving them a pen, they both write but only one erases. perks just are not good enough to replace attributes, it will cause descrepencies in character designs.

You can call me an optimist, because I have faith that this new system work out great and I'll have one of the most enjoyable times playing a video game. If this is a deal breaker to you, then I feel sorry for you.

» Mon May 02, 2011 11:05 pm

Again, I'll let that slide if you think Daggerfall is the best TES game. If you think Morrowind or Oblivion is better, then you're disagreeing with yourself, because they are perfect examples of what I mean.

Sans the bugs Dagger was arguably the best TES. i liked being able to be an Orc and Imperial in Morrow, I like other things Morrow did, same with Oblivion. I put Morrow and Dagger neck and neck because of Daggers bugs. If everything is still in, just under a different sub category, then there's nothing wrong, but since Dagger we've lost stuff, what will we lose now?