It's no different than choosing attribute poitns at level up.

Oblivion: If you used a lot of strength based skills, you could choose a large strength improvement. You could choose to increase intelligence a little if you wanted.

Skyrim: If you use a lot of "strength based" skills, you will have more perks to choose from for those skills. I can probably still choose "intelligence based" perks as well, they will just be less options, and probably lower powered.

"Every company", that's a bit harsh don't you think. I mean, you think Portal 2 is simpler than Portal 1, for instance?



Ok do you even know what the attributes in Oblivion did for your character?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Attributes

I think you're being completely nonsensical. The main reason why anything is ever removed from a game is either because they can't afford to keep it (as is the case with a select few companies running on a broken budget, e.g. because their previous project was a disaster), or because they wanna approach the problems from a different angle. Well, Bethesda's got about 100 people working on Skyrim so they're are in no way unable to afford anything. Plus, I wouldn't exactly categorize Oblivion as a disaster - being the best-selling PC RPG in history. But whenever you approach something differently, it often results in some of the old methods becoming redundant. Do you rather want redundancy in the game than to have Bethesda actually implement interesting and useful stuff?!!

You're weird.

So rather than fix the flaw of an open system, they cut a pieces of it out, fixing the flaw and limitting just a little more the open world system that they are known for?

I don't mind redundancy in anything. When there are multiple paths the the same thing, people tend to choose the ones they are most comfortable with, and that might [very likely] be different from the next person. Is it weird to believe that a lack of redundancy in a system, forces conformity on the users?

:chaos:

First some fool actually said attributes complicated things... excactly! Hence the OP that perks simpiflying things.

Now have any of you played Fallout 3... we know how perks work and we know perks are not really strategic or that in-depth. Seriously why didint Bethesda put Attributes AND perks???

I mean revolving leveling around perks is just dumb. When i read there wer perks I was excited but now that I know they replaced what made TES an Rpg... oh welll

We know how Perks work in Fallout 3....

For Skyrim... The Perk announcement was not exciting (to me), it was more of an "oh..". I did see the potential though (just not the actuality).

You miss the ulterior motive for my comments. Using a "perk" to alter a supposedly natural attribute becomes even more fake and "spreadsheety" than the previous system. If this is all Bethesda has, then they are doing to an even greater degree what they claim to be eliminating.

...rethortical question... you know I'm not going to bother... :shakehead:

To save money. The balancing of attributes and perks would require the investment of time and resources, and it was decided that that time and those resources were not going to be invested, so attributes were chopped. And it then became Todd's job (as it regularly is, and as it was with Oblivion) to go out and try to put a pretty face on the decision. As he's done.

And that is, sincerely, that.

Perhaps deserved. (I admit that I misread your post at first.)

Perks are the main power skills the minor power so... yes its very likely a perk will inddeed increase carry cap by 20-50 lb. Thats what they are there for to make sizable changes to your character over the course of leveling up 10-20 times. or 50...

That's the new TES then. That was not the ideology behind perks when they bought them.

Those of you who want attributes, come up with a way to make them useful again,better than what the new system does.
Bare in mind you'll reach a 100 in all attributes,not unique at all. To me it seems those that say attributes are no longer needed have had better explanations as why they should go, as opposed to those that say they should stay.

1: Make strength useful
2: Make willpower useful
3: Make agility useful
4: Make intelligence useful
5: Make speed useful
6: Make personality useful
7: Make endurance useful

Make all these useful again, better than the new way does. I would like to know if it bothers you that much.
Read my above post as to why they are redundant,and there is more reasons. But given we have Ranks,perks,spells,shouts,enchantments,racial abilites,health,magicka,stamina,and more focus in the skill themselves.No matter which way you look at it,some skills ,spells etc,made attributes useless,just meaningless numbers.

Bethesda has spent years making the game,they think about the changes they make. We also as fans,always want new things and improvement,and then when they try to do it,we moan at them.It seems no matter what bethesda do we are never happy. We still have alot more info to come yet,and we've yet to play the game.

Either way,attributes are gone,or are there in a more softer way,like was said in the G4 interview. I think bethesda know what they are doing,and i think they know what their fans are like,such ideas/choices to remove attributes wouldn't have been taken lightly.

4-5 years... 4-5 years the team has had to look over all aspects of doing this, and not doing this. The way some people talk about the new system is as if the team went and wrote it in stone during week one of production, without any care, just for the sake of 'simplifying' the game and making it easier on our apparently puny minds. I mean come on. I've already even read about people who AREN'T going to buy Skyrim at all, just because of this frantic notion... (which is complete BS, they will end up buying it anyway, I mean really? )... the team has the game. They play the game. I'm pretty sure that if it was as screwed up as a lot of you make it sound... someone would of noticed by now.

Now... if you right-off-the-bat lost even this much trust in Bethesda (who has made some of the most epic RPGs to date) and can't even imagine the new system playing out alright and are just going to, from now on, spam the forums with your hot-head doom theories... please... go quietly play with your attributes, somewhere else.

I personally use to make freaking spreadsheets and plan every character out in my head to painful statistical detail, just because the attributes got so off-balance... it was alright at first, but after so many hours of playing different characters... it began to feel very in-the-way and just tiresome. As if I couldn't branch out to any great extent into any other style of play after so long.

The bunch of awesome effects perks could have, and the way they are represented and chosen... all sound great to me right now. But, even though I have said all this, the true verdict will make itself totally clear when we all actually get to play the game. In, my, opinion. So please... can we have more screen-talk? E3 hype? Anything but more attribute threads?

Reallity is that : attributes did two things in the game.

- Thing one, when you improve a skill, the attribute improves too which means your skill improves even more, but in a hidden way! Lame and useless just makes thing confusing for no good reason. Improvements were minor anyway and worse, the bonus wasn't applied once your skill was at cap cause the hidden bonus couldn't improve your skill past that cap.

- Thing two, Str improved carry capacity, End HP gain at level up (which was a whole lot of lame in it's own right), Int improved total Magicka and Will Magicka regen. Oh and some people pretend that Personality made people like you more but it's wrong, all that it really did was prevent you from doing one of the daedric quests I know it!


The first effect of attributes were minor and completely unneeded. The second effects are handled differentlly. For example let's look at carry capacity. You got a bosmer thief that trains day and night with his dagger to hit and kill things that improves his Blade skill thus improving his Str and carry capacity. On the other hand, you got a young but world knowlegeable wizzard that spend the last few years traveling all around the place on food carrying his tools of study and books and alchemical apparatus (for a total of 99/100 carry capacity). In Oblivion, which one of those two cases would end up with level up bonuses to help him carry a couple more full suits of plate armor? Which one should have really got the bonus?

From my perspective, the only thing the attributes from Oblivion did was provide a fancy name for health, magicka, and fatigue. For example, intelligence affected your magicka, agility affected your fatigue, and so on. But I don't see this as a way of simplifying the game. I see it as an opportunity to make your character EXACTLY what you wanted it to be, and still have the luxury of leveling in the process.

In Oblivion, you had to choose seven major skills, which contributed to your leveling process. So let's say I have a warrior-type character. And just for the hell of it, I chose Blade, Block, Illusion, Heavy Armor, Light Armor, Blunt, and Hand-to-Hand. In order for me to level up, I'd have to raise those skills. Sure, I could raise other skills like Sneak and Acrobatics and Athletics, but they wouldn't contribute to my leveling up. In Skyrim, ALL skills contribute to your level, but working on specific skills and bringing those as high as you can will level you quicker. So, I can have my mage-type character who has a high Heavy Armor skill, and I could still level up. Sure, it'll be a little slower, but at least I'm getting there.

My point is, I'm perfectly fine with the removal of attributes. Bethesda is doing what's necessary to make a good game. They've done it before. They'll continue to do it. Stop overreacting, please.

Yes!

Well... no, but as I said their reasons are pretty solid, IMO. It might be a game and even Bethesda might want us to have more freedom, but game development is still a business and they do have a deadline. Scrapping the less important stuff in favor of additional all-new feature implementation is often the way to go - especially since it helps with the feeling of "newness" as well.

Redundancy is redundant for a reason, it's because people aren't likely gonna take advantage of the feature because a better feature already exists. Redundancy isn't the same as providing two relatively equal options. Redundancy is about rendering something pointless. Conformity is the result of actual activities being dumbed down, not potential ones.

And then it's up to the devs to define what is actual and what is not, of course, hopefully with the help of you, me and the rest of the forum

I'm seriously [censored] sick of this "casual gamer" thing. you play games or you don't, you enjoy them or you don't. END OF THE [censored] LINE!!! A gamer doesn't choose to be casual or "hardcoe" (yeah, as in, I-think-I'm-more-intelligent-because-I-play-games-with-numbers). A gamer plays the games he thinks are good, and doesn't play those he doesn't like. Just because I play TES doesn't mean I stopped playing Halo, and the other way around is true. So seriously, stop thinking that a FORM OF ENTERTAINEMENT absolutely NEEDS to be USELESSLY complex in areas that don't make that big of a damn change anyways

And seriously, do you REALLY think that just because leveling your character (AKA around 1% of the game) isn't the same, that the whole effin' game will svck?
If Bethesda wanted money, they'd make TES Black Ops or TES 2011. They make a game this big, it's not to scrap it on purpose

oh and BTW, I know A LOT of "casual" gamers that don't care if there are attributes or not. hell, most of them love RPGs and love TES (those who tried it anyways)

You know, back when I was younger and WAY more alike to your image of a "casual" gamer, what brought me to TES was simple: it had swords, a free-roaming world and magic lol. I learned the RPG side of it AFTER. and that's probably how most "casual" gamers choose a game: the THEME, the FEEL of the game.



And seriously, that attitude of yours (Bethesda making it ONLY for money) it's seriously annoying. I know when you have a business, you have to make it run, but if they REALLY wanted to save time and money, they's have taken the system in Oblivon and copied it. Your argument is invalid

I'm sorry but I did not understand what you said, but I guess I take it back?

I've got a friend - a great big ox of a guy - a former rugby player - who's one of the strongest people I know. He also has a bad heart, bad knees and epilepsy. He's not, by any measure, healthy.

I have another friend who stands about five foot six and can't weigh more than 120 pounds, but who has a habit of going to bars, getting drunk, then picking a fight with the biggest guy there. He's little and light and not at all strong, but he just doesn't give up. He'll keep hammering away at the other guy and keep getting knocked down and keep getting up and hammering away at hims some more. He's not strong by any measure, but in TES terms, he has enormous amounts of health.

With a system that included skills, perks AND attributes, each of those people could be (roughly at least) duplicated in-game. With the elimination of attributes, neither of them can be. With a system that included skills, perks AND attributes, it would have been possible to create a character who was physically strong, but still not healthy, or physically weak, but extraordinarily healthy, or any of countless other combinations and varieties. With the removal of attributes, all of those combinations become impossible.

Well... Some people use menus, some use hot-keys; and some use the command console (and not just in games). :shrug:
Should things be menu only? (hot-keys only? Command-line only?)

The upshot for some of us is that we get to role play as other players in Skyrim. :laugh:

I stopped reading here.

Funny, I have not seen any good explanation why attributes as a concept (not the implementation) should go. :shrug:

I think attributes are already useful by influencing the strength of your skills - this is not superfluous, because it's realistic and gives you the opportuntiy to design your character around his attributes and not his skills.

What is it that makes attributes useless in your opinion?

An attribute is the relational notion of a natural ability that exists in people. One has intelligence to one degree or another. One has strength. One has willpower.

As you study you become "smarter." As you exercise you become strong. In a game like TES these things tick up over time. The previous games allowed for a slightly contrived choice in improving these when you leveled up. Not perfect. But not awful.

If these natural things are now governed by perks....no matter how much I exercise, I will never become stronger unless I choose a perk. If I cast spells all day and night...may ability to regen/max magicka will not increase unless I choose a perk.

So, they cast away a slightly contrived system to one that is completely contrived. If this is true then the game is devolving. Sure, the game will be great. It just will be slightly more contrived and less of what really made previous TES games stand above and beyond the rest.

I can't say that I greeted this news with anything that can be described as a happy emotion... I think it's too early to say that the system has been dumbed down, but I am more apprehensive then I ever have been about Skyrim and am starting to feel a tiny tinge of regret at pre-ordering the game.

After being severely disappointed with Dragon Age II I told myself I'd never outright buy another game again without renting it first. Bethesda is the only company I still trust... I hope they will retain that trust.