If you define attributes in such a narrow way, then yes, pokemon have more, but that is an utterly pointless thing to point out because they're a very small part of what defines a Skyrim character compared to how important they are for Pokemon, largely because it was a turn based game in a 2D world.

A pure warrior has no need at all for magicka because he's not casting spells and a pure mage doesn't need stamina very much because he's not sprinting and hitting things with weapons. A pure thief would go for stamina if he needed it and it doesn't look like that is the case at all. If anything it's going to lead to thieves that rely on sneak attacks to boost their health, which doesn't go with the traditional archetype, or to use archery, which is now under the warrior archetype, and thus will not level as quickly if they decide to activate the Thief Guardian Stone. The fact that the system does something does not mean that it does it well.

For the second point: you don't think that a better solution would be to make thievery work better?

Wrong. Some of us, myself included, don't want to just get on the expressway to Uber City. We actually prefer characters who have flaws and weaknesses and limitations.

Under the old system, we could all get what we wanted. We could play a character who starts out better than everyone else, or a character who starts out average, or a character who starts out worse than everyone else. We no longer have that option - ALL we can play is a character who starts out just like everybody else, and the ONLY direction is up. That is, no matter how one might look at it and no matter how many people simply don't care, a loss of options.

Done correctly, it isn't the expressway to Uber City. A character's flaws and weaknesses and limitations are all the things he can't do (something like 200+ perks in Skyrim). Done well, the effect should be similar to the effect of inabilities of a Nethack character. It's a strong, limiting effect.

This debate is pointless really , its already done , you can't change that .
The point is , by removing the Attributes instead of giving them uniqueness they are going to lose a lot that cannot be gained by mainstreaming them and gain a little out of the process and what's gained from this process could also have been gained while keeping the Attributes , they may give you a reason or two as to why they removed them completely but the fact of the matter is that they could've kept them but that would have cost them time and money . It's all really about time and money .Tthey could have kept the attribute system and fixed it instead of completely axing it , but they didn't want to risk the time or the resources .

There are multiple different silver and steel swords - silver are better for slaying magical/supernatural enemies and that is why they have the distinct types. I've never entirely understood why silver isn't just as effective vs. humans, but just clarifying. There are also multiple outfits. As for skill checks, TES games never had them for dialogue, so are they not RPGs now? People seem to have a list of game features they just expect to be in RPGs that they falsely believe need to be in the game for it to be an RPG. Also the second game had the most different endings depending on your dialogue choices in any game I've played, with 1 of the 3 chapters being very different depending on what you did in an earlier chapter. Your choices did matter.




The distinction is that in RPGs you are intended to feel a part of the story and world, that you take on the role of your character rather than just playing it like a racing game or a FPS where you're just being you playing a game. This means yes, more games are RPGs than will be labeled RPGs. Also your definition of complex is very limited, Thief and Bioshock were more complex than TES games because of how you played the game and the ways the game challenged you, and not because a complex formula calculated the amount of damage you dealt with your weapon. You had a large variety of tools, but you had to use them wisely in ways appropriate for the situations. This can't really be said of TES, where I could use on simply strategy - even one ability almost exclusively - to defeat everything. I had a choice in what color and shape that one trick wonder was, I could even switch between them if I felt like it, but regardless combat was very dull.

What kind of RPG mage doesn't spend half his early levels running for dear life?

They aren't just taking the perks from Oblivion and repackaging them. Sure those perks will be in the perk trees, but there will be a vast amount of new perks to choose from. Now I do disagree with them taking out the attributes. I want to determine if my guy is fast, intelligent assassin or a dumb hulking barbarian. I would rather they have permanent and changing attributes, like intelligence,speed, and agility are stagnant, while strength, endurance, charisma, and magicka are all upgradable(though not to the extent seen in Oblivion).

Well in my mind a character starting out weak and continuing to be weak is a terrible option to have, as is starting out stronger than other people, as is becoming a god with little effort. My issue with attributes being removed is the fact that it reduces character variety in the sense that there are fewer builds. I really don't understand this mindset that some people have about balance not being important since it's a single player game. Thinking it wasn't a problem that spellmaking was overpowered ties into this as well. Somehow it's fine that their character can very easily break the system and abuse features that NPCs are literally incapable of using, but they would sure as hell have a problem with finding hundreds of Daedric weapons that NPCs can't equip all over the place even though "it's optional."

Sorry to go off on a tangent like that, but to me balance is very important. I'm tired of TES using a system that is terrible at it.

I NEVER defined my builds in past TES games starting from Daggerfall based on the attributes. Those weren't part of the build, they were roadblocks to overcome : Int for magic I had to train security or alchemy to improve it (so backwards!) Str to carry more than a couple items,attributes themselves would cap my ability to improve my skills in Morrowind and it was a main, training my axe skill to improve str to allow me to improve my long sword skill which was supposed to be my main and only weapon type.


My builds were all based entirely around skills. I'd go around playing a kind of thief using sneak and illusion magic or I'd try some D&D style monk with hand to hand and restoration as the main skills. Or some holy knight that'd focus mostly on Speechcraft to solve his problems before switching to his sword and shield (I did quite a lot of starting quests without much effort with only a couple bribes in Morrowind, it was refreshing )

Attributes are rough and uninteresting. Skills are what makes TES what it is. Sure we might get a few less skills but honestly, I didn't like acrobatics and athletics cause they just didn't work well in the "train skills by usage" system. Also, allowing someone to improve THAT much their run speed or jump height is a balancing nightmare.

There's absolutely no possible way there will be fewer character builds in Skyrim when you get 50 out of 280 perks. There are hundreds if not more possible builds, you just define your character less at the character creation and more by playing the game. Just the opposite of Morrowind and Oblivion, in which your character started off unique but got less and less distinct as they slowly edged toward having 100 in all attributes and skills at which point race and birthsign were the only things that made any difference - and even then some of the birthsigns and races offered nothing beyond attribute/skill boosts and spells that would by then be obsolete.

Thats not very true. The only things pre-determined are your character's name, gender, looks, background and voice. You can dress what you want, you can use what swords/daggers/halberds/axes you want, you can complete quests in whatever way you want, you can make whatever choices you want and you can mostly (unfortunately not always) say what you want. In regard of choices, consequences and branching storylines theyre some of the best games out there. The dialogue system that didnt always let you say what you want is my main complaint about both games btw and the main reason I dont count them among my favorite games despite amazing world, lore, story, characters etc. I hate it when Geralt often speaks without permission and says stuff that dont fit my character which totally breaks immersion. The Witcher 2 also had really bad and vague paraphrases which really pissed me off many times. The dialogue system is the only reason why I dont count The Witchers as my favourite rpgs.

They also have stats, skills and perks btw. You can specialize in magic, sword fighting or alchemy and put points to each. There's also things like persuasion or threatening in The Witcher 2 that you can practice by using. There's also a similar mechanic in The Witcher but its been ages since I last played it and cant remember exactly what it was like. They both still have a lot of stats and stat checks though.

To not get completely off-topic I'll comment the thread too. I'm really disappointed with the removal of attributes and it really takes away from role playing and depth. Gpstr and MK have said most of what I'd have to say about them though. Seemingly redundant (not really redundant) things like attributes are crucial to rpgs. They arent necessary in fps or adventure games but are absolutely necessary in rpgs. They are required to create the character I want to and help define him and make him more complex. I dont want to just have to imagine my character being intelligent, I want the game to acknowledge that too. Three bars cant possibly give the same role playing possibilities that attributes can. How can high magicka mean all the same things high intelligence would when it comes to role playing? They arent the same thing even if intelligence only raised magicka. The middle man is necessary there. Having an intelligent character has so much more depth than having a character with high magicka. The attributes system was never perfect but removing it is not the solution. It just needs some tweaking.

>largely because it was a turn based game in a 2D world.
>turn based game in a 2D world
>in a 2D world
>2D world

Please do expand on that. Exactly how does the manner in which the game is rendered have any bearing on the significance or lack thereof of attributes? I'm sincerely quite eager to know what possible difference you believe that makes.

Its turned based man .... its incomparable to Skyrim ...

Exactly. Strength cannot be "squeezed in" under some other limited attribute. It is what it is: If you're stronger, you lift more, carry more, hit harder with melee weapons; basically you can do more than a weaker person can, and no other stat will affect what strength does, BUT STRENGTH.

Removing the attributes in order to make them perks was decidedly stupid. Kinda like EA removing features from last year's Madden in order to give them back in 2 years and call it something new.

2D games have limited options when it comes to combat, having stats represent combat that isn't possible to accurately portray in such a world was one of few viable approaches.

Eh... to quote the semi-notorious article on the subject, I think that balance is overrated.

You touch on the thing that I believe is more significant re: balance - not whether or not the PC can do this or that thing, but whether or not NPCs also can. But that's a huge topic of its own, and it's all I can do to keep my attention on this one. I'd be curious to go into it some other time though....

As gpstr has pointed out again and again, it's not a matter of perks vs. attributes, as it would be easy to have perks AND attributes. Variable stats and 50 perks is more variety than just 50 perks. I was fine with attributes being gone when I assumed that they'd have a system to replace every one but it's clear that speed is gone entirely since it's purely a function of encumbrance and equipment now.

Hell, I already proposed an attribute system that ties into and imitates the perk tree system elegantly and smoothly. Being able to choose just 50 of those would provide limitations on power while adding variety in much the same way that perks do.


And again, I could not possibly disagree more. RPG stands for role-playing game, and to me the game part is every bit as important as the role-playing part. A balanced system is a good system, and a particular archetype being objectively more powerful than another is a black mark. You've said before that the new magic system is a lot like equipping a rocket launcher, except that the launcher is your hand and the rocket is a bolt of lightning, and frankly that sounds [censored] awesome. It's pretty much what I always wanted out of the magic system in TES. I agree with Todd Howard when he says it was too "spreadsheety." I felt like I was doing math, not imposing my will upon the universe to twist reality to my own ends. Is the highly likely removal of spellmaking more limiting? Sure, but to me limitation is not necessarily a bad thing, because of all that balance stuff I ramble on about like a crazy man standing on the street corner and handing out copies of a poorly-Xeroxed socialist newsletter. Some people will miss it. Some people, yourself included, think that a better solution would be to fix its issues, but I'm of the mind that removing it entirely does exactly that. The only way to balance it would be severely limit it, and honestly when you do that there's going to be a point where you question the reasoning of even including it to begin with, especially when the actual casting of spells has a hell of a lot more flexibility now. I really do think that spellcrafting necessitates generalizing magic to a certain degree, and I'd much rather have a single fire spell that behaves in a manner fundamentally different from a single lightning spell to a lukewarm mass of numbers that allows you more options at the cost of distinction.

Do they? Let's see some examples. I seem to clearly remember the old SSI games, for instance, having the choice of fighting with a sword, or fighting with an axe, or using magic, or using a bow, which would compare with TES in which you have the choice of fighting with a sword, or fighting with an axe, or using magic, or using a bow. And what, precisely, does that have to do with attributes?


This doesn't even begin to make sense.

In the first place, stats represent combat NO MATTER WHAT. The only language a computer knows is numbers - it's just translated into images and colors and words for your convenience. It doesn't matter how simple or how complex those images are - underneath it all, there's nothing BUT stats. If there are more and more complex stats, then that's what there are. If there are fewer and less complex, that's what there are. The pictures the game shows you to represent all of that are entirely separate. Hell - a game could run all the same combat and damage calculations that Oblivion, for instance, runs, then display it to you as petals falling off of a flower when you point a sunbeam at it. It'd still be the exact same calculations based on the exact same input and the exact same stats - it'd just have different pictures attached to it.

What Skyrim is trying to do with how players approach their desired character is totally different with morrowind and oblivion. The most obvious change is the attributes.

There are more viable reasons that attributes are out than trying to make the game more appealing to newbs or those who want everything simple.

First they wanted to introduce perks. Perks are tied with skills. If attributes like strength or agility that affects weapon damage as well as one handed or archery skill perks would comparatively lose its importance. I said comparatively because some argue that Beth could've just fixed attributes not rid of them and still introduce perks. This argument is redundant because by taking out the attributes they can stress the importance of perks, the new feature in Skyrim. It is easy to understand that having attributes+skills+perks is not a simple addition to having skills+perks. They're NOT 'bigger than' relations. They're just 'not equal'.

Second, since perks are tied with skills, we can safely say that skills more or less govern the entire character's performance. In previous series of ES attributes increase reflected how much your character spent time with a group of skills. A character with high strength could've spent more time with blade, blunt or hand to hand, but didn't particularly reflect a single spell. Thus a guy who ignored blade completely and only practiced blunt got better at blade cause blunt raises strenghth. Now I'm not saying this is wrong. It is natural that a guy good with blunt can get better with blade more than a guy who only practiced magic. It makes sense and I agree BUT a game design is not about making sense. It's about how players can interact with the game in meaningful way. Now that skills are the only governing aspect of a player's performance what is reflected in your character's growth is only consisted with what your character actually did in the past. Compared to previous series Skyrim character is a stronger representation of 'you are what you do', and this is what Skyrim is meant to be.

Skyrim is just a different game with different purpose in game design. There's no reason to deny it or criticize it.

For the dialogue system, ff you were trying to bribe somebody, this depended largely on your characters Speech Craft skill...it was the easiest form of raising "Disposition" but it also cost you money, and could backfire. A more complex RPG would also have the NPCs morals taken into account, and the perfect role playing game would then inform you of what their likely moral outlook was, based on your intelligence/speechcraft. Obviously you can sometimes infer that because of the character (shady guy in a back alley) but sometimes it's harder (a corrupt noble). And that's what we'll never be able to do in Skyrim. It didn't work that way in Morrowind or Oblivion, but it easily could have within the system. They certainly hadn't perfected dialogue outcomes, but it's something you only can do with Attributes to give a baseline probability.

I just have trouble calling games role playing simply because they intend for you to feel a part of the story and world. A racing game could easily do that by saying you are Sam "Speedy" Gonzalez, and you need to compete in underground drag races to win enough money to pay ransom for your kidnapped sister. But it's not a role playing game. Even if you had the option of instead spending your winnings on a gun and bribing informants, ultimately tracking down and fighting the kidnappers, (which introduces complexity, and gives you multiple ways of resolving the story) it is still not an RPG. Until your specific version of Speedy is different from the given archetype, not just in the choices he's made but in the ability to make those choices, it's not an RPG. Now, if you can choose for Speedy to drive Hondas better than Subarus, or use pistols better than shotguns, that is a role playing game. And to further complicate, it would help if he had Attributes such as Speed and Strength (which would then determine how fast he could run vs. how hard he can hit in a fist fight), rather than having every Speedy character run the same speed and hit with the same strength.

On the flip side, let's say you are playing Elf Quest, or Elf Quest II: The Re-Wizarding, and you are given a mission to kill some orc. Now, we'll pretend for this scenario that you cannot talk your way out of it, you have to kill him. An RPG doesn't care what method you use to kill this orc. You can use an Axe, a Dagger, a Spell. But you, as a character, are more likely to kill the orc with a weapon that you are proficient with. This engenders certain traits on your character. If you choose to use a dagger (because that's what you have the highest skill in) you will probably have to sneak up on him, because it's hard to penetrate armor with just a dagger in a straight up melee fight. The game has to account for this, usually by giving a bonus for sneak damage/armor penetration when using a knife, which is usually weaker than a sword or other large weapon (based on anecdotal evidence as well as leverage/mass) and because sneaking a knifing rely on similar attributes, such as Agility, (for accuracy in strikes and balance when sneaking) rather than the Strength you would use to wield a sword or axe with enough force to penetrate armor. This is the type of complexity an RPG should seek to have.

It's almost not so much choice in action as it is choice in character design. That's why I also don't think characters necessarily need to have "growth" in an RPG. You can start the game as powerful as you will ever be, but your character will be powerful in different ways than another, such as starting as a master swordsman vs a master archer. Of course the growth part adds fun and a "reward" mechanic, but it's not strictly necessary for an RPG.

TL; DR - RPGs aren't necessarily about choice. Your character will always have a better time of doing things in a way which you have predetermined. You have given a blank slate character the "role" of swordsman, archer, mage, and you then have to "play" that role. You can certainly use the other options, but your success will suffer for not adhering to the template you originally laid out. And I like that.



And that's what I was wondering, and that certainly does push it into the realm of RPG. If you focus on melee to the detriment of magic, you play the slightly altered role of Geralt, and later in the game you will have to mold your play style to those decisions. And I know from various reviews that it certainly is complex, probably more so than Oblivion in Morrowind in terms of possible outcomes. However, it would always be more complex if you had Attributes which are then variable, so that each version of Geralt is given different rates for success in a given outcome, such as deciding to run away vs. deciding to fight. You can always make that choice in terms of the game (which option is more difficult, which is more fun) but it comes down to player skill, how well you can maneuver your character and how well you've learned the combat system. In a more complex RPG, the character's Attributes and Skills would largely decide what action you take for the best result. It's just another layer of complexity on top of immediate choice and character skill.

Ultimately this manuver by Beth Removes options plain and simple, what they were selling in JAN about the trickle down and all that garbage was, simply Skills do for themselves what Attributes did for them, not Skills do what Attributes did for everything.

Jack can't be nimble, Jack can't be quick, Jack can't even jump over the freaking Candle stick. and when Jack falls down and breaks his crown, theres no Jill tumbling after, because they are all Jacks.

Whoa up there a minute..... we're pretty much on the same page here, or at least seem to be.

First, briefly, and with no offense meant, my issue with the virtual rocket launcher of magic is that it reeks of svcking up to the FPS crowd. Turn magic into a weapon pick up, so that players can start the game and rush to the rocket launcher and then say, "COME GET SOME!" There's something fundamentally tawdry about it.

Now - that said, they might well manage to pull off something good with it, and just for the reason you state - because magic really should feel like bending power to your will. There might just be a welcome element of that to it.

Or it might just be a weapon pick up. We'll see.

Now - regarding balance - the reason that I balk whenever I see "balance" held up as a virtue is that it all too often means pounding every possible character into shapeless pabulum. "Balance" all too often isn't achieved by making certain that all characters have the potential to become more or less equally strong, but by hobbling things so that all characters remain more or less equally weak. That's specifically what I don't want to see. If the "problem" is that mages can become too strong, then don't gimp them - make the other archetypes stronger.

I have no particular issue with "balance" in the sense of relatively equal pinnacles of development - my issue is "balance" in the sense of keeping everybody equally drab, and that latter is all too often what people actually want. I rarely see anyone argue for making one or another build stronger in order to compete - instead, it seems that everybody wants to make the strong ones weaker. That's bassackwards, in my opinion.

And again, if the NPCs can't keep up - make them stronger too. Look for balance at the furthest reaches - don't bring it about just by chopping everyone off at the knees.

These are two points I've considered myself. I hate that fireballs operate like machine guns. You pull the trigger until your target is dead, and then "reload" when you're on empty. I'd like to see a magic system where the psychology of fireballs is just as important as the physics. A fireball might not kill your target, but no one's going to mess with a guy who can shoot flames from his fingers. Just think of the witch hunts, how afraid people were of witches and wizards in the middle ages, how much they believed in their power, despite the fact that I'm SURE no one saw anything like the "magic" we see in TES. Of course, taken too far this could get boring (obviously the accused probably never did ANY witchcraft, regardless of it's effectiveness) but the point is, wizards shouldn't have to kill their target, mainly they just have to convince them they can kill them, and do it in a way which they cannot defend against physically.

As far as balance is concerned - allowing warriors to bash locks because thieves can pick them and wizards can open them magically = good balance. I can't see my barbarian fiddling with flimsy lockpicks or studying one specific spell. This is even better if there are drawbacks to lock bashing, such as noise, chance to destroy items inside of the container, chance to break your weapon in doing so. Also certain weapons are better, just like how you can't unlock a chest with a fireball spell, you can't bash it open with a fencing foil.

Where I've seen balance abused the worst however is not in gimping characters, but gimping the game. "Balance" is what gave us level scaling, the idea that the challenge would always be the same no matter how powerful your character was. Terrible choice, even worse execution.

Okay what is there that cannot be done in skills, the three stats or perks?

Oh and how without perks would everybody be the bloody same?