^This, with the one possible exception being the clipping on the armour, even though, for my part, I would rather have less than perfectly beautiful clipping than have armour as a onsie. :rolleyes:

On the majority of the other points, however, I believe you are absolutely right.

A FEW of the attributes can be said to have been streamlined, namely things like Intelligence and possibly endurance and strength, the benefits of which can feasibly all be squeezed in under Magicka, Health and stamina.

HOWEVER, UNLESS things like Acrobatics, willpower bonuses and athelitics have All been squeezed into those three somehow also, then they are not doing anyone any favours (with the possible exception of restictionists who hate the notion of anyone being able to create anything approaching an uberbuild and therefore want it voided as an option, which by definition is a reduction of player options NOT an expansion of them) by removing certain attributes. What they ARE doing is going further to limit the options available to a player/playercharacter.

They are, it seems, taking certain abilities and achievement related enhancements that, in previous games, came as a natural and automatic part of progression in certain skills/abilities, and repackaging them into perks of limited availability. They are forcing a more limited build, from all indicators, and skating by on the fact that they are reducing the players options, knowing that if they float the euphimistic strawman of "ALLOWING" greater customization diversity, that a certain group of fans who love the "unique build" argument, will rush to their support and defense.

But the notion that such reductions in options "allow" for greater diversity is a lie. They actually allow for less potential diversity, by forcing diversity in a smaller number of certain builds. Players were nevere NOT allowed to be extremely diverse, they were never not allowed to make pure characters, very limited in certain areas and very gifted in others (and many if not most players had main characters who were exactly as I have just described). However, players did have the option of creating characters who were some what uber. It was an option that some players certainly chose. The Devs seem to be trying to take away such options, and dressing it up as somehow being an increase in options, when in fact it is just the opposite. I could easily be wrong, but I have a strong hypothesis, and there are good indicators to support it that the benefits of Acrobatics, Atheletics and the like will still be in the game. . but quarantined under "Perks". You can be really fast, but you won't be able to gain that extra damage in one handed weapons. You can jump high, but you have to give up that perk point that you wanted to use for enhancing your destruction spells, etc. etc.

'Intelligence' defines how smart my character is. Whether he can easily be lied to or not. Whether he can have a proper discussion with a mage or rather likes to smash in skulls. How exactly is that squeezed under magica, health or stamina?

Endurance as health - okay, I suppose that is understandable.

Strength? The time I can draw a bow, the power of my strikes, the ability to climb objects etc. - what does that have to do with magicka, health or stamina?

I can appreciate the fact that your argument is fleshed out. However, I still think that Bethesda has found a way to keep these features, but streamline them somehow. Whether I'm wrong will have to remain to be seen until the game actually comes out. Because of this, I choose not to debate about how or why until everyone actually has the final build of the game in their hands to play and experience first hand.

My question to you is what is wrong with relegating things like that to perks? For example, why not have to sacrifice some of your strength for your jumping and speed abilities? IRL, there's always a sacrifice in strength for greater agility, and vice versa. And even if they're not relegated to a perk tree, and you're still allowed to level them with the new leveling system, that's still fairly realistic. Say you're an exceptionally strong person, but you want to build up your speed, so you work on that. Your skill with speed is much lower than strenght, but becoming faster still benefits you, just at a slower incremental increase at first.

I really think the perk system is a good one and will force the player to really think about what kinds of abilities they want to focus on and have, and make it truly difficult to be a jack of all trades (like it would be in true life).

To be honest I stopped reading when everthing went bold.

I determine how smart my character is. "Int" stat increased your magicka and limited training under certain skills. You don't need a number to tell you how to role play.

The biggest proof that attributes isn't necessary for role playing is in the games NPCs. When an orc warrior comes slamming an axe into you knocking you off your feet and taking a chunk off your health you don't have to go into the construction set and find said NPCs stat sheet to know he is strong. When a mage flings powerful spells out you endlessly you know he is a capable magician. So why do PCs have to have attributes?

Whether skyrim will be more advanced and diverse in builds has yet to be seen. It's silly to argue it's not.

Have you played TES? In the TES games, Intelligence governed how much magica your character had. They've simply taken away the title of Intelligence, not the attribute itself.

I will try to keep an open mind for now on the attributes until I see how it is implemented. I don't have much hope for it though to be real honest. If my pure mage can suddenly pick up a 2 handed axe halfway through the game and start swinging it around and actually hit something with it, I will be VERY disappointed.

These are my exact concerns with their decision to remove attributes. Not every aspect of your character can be defined by how much health/magicka/stamina you have, so what was going through their heads when they decided that is all we will need?

And what about luck?? Is that another one of those things that just got trashed too? From all appearances it seems that is the situation, and Im not too thrilled about it.

Now that my little rant is out of the way, I would like to state that I am %100 psyched for Skyrim, and im sure it will be one of the best ES games to date. However, it really does disappoint me to see a classic staple of the franchise (and all RPGs) to be thrown out the window for no better reason than "streamlining" for all the new casual gamers who are intimidated by such complex game mechanics.

I'm kinda just sick of fans, tell you the truth. Why not be moderate? I really don't care what is in or isn't - I love TES, and have ever since I stumbled upon the UESP site and started reading the lore. I want a different game. Not a reboot Morrowind, a reboot Oblivion, I want Skyrim. A new, different experience. There are features I want, and features I don't, but I trust Beth to make a good game. Todd has never disappointed me before. :shrug: If you guys wanna spazz out about this and that, and then spazz out about people spazzing out, fine. But I'm going wait in anticipation for a game that is sure to stay on my game shelf forever. Just like every other Beth game. Fallout 3, Oblivion... even F:NV stays there (Obsidian did a good job). Crazy open world games are what Beth does best, and that's what I expect them to do.

Wasn't that already possible in Oblivion?

Have you not played oblivion? What you describe is in I'm sure. You shouldn't expect that not to be the case for tes5.

Well, the difference I see being that in Oblivion, while it was possible to pick up the axe, I wouldn't have been very good with it. Having concentrated on raising intelligence and wisdom and not put a single point into strength, I would expect my attacks to hit, but hardly do any damage. Now without strength, whose to say my mage isn't going to be doing as much damage as a warrior with the very same axe.

I am sure the devs have put more thought into how it is implemented than I have. My fear is that this is just more of the same "streamlining" by making all characters basically one generic class that can do EVERYTHING and do it all exceptionally well.

Until I play the game I have no idea whether I think attribute removal was a good or bad thing. I don't know if increasing my health stat is another way of increasing my str and end to carry more and fight better. Does increasing my fatigue increase my speed and jump height? Does increasing magicka affect spell potency? Or do I have to spend perks for all that stuff? If so the perk tree is going to get boring in a hurry if I'm spending them all on increased carrying capacity and the like. If increasing my three attributes just gives me more of those attributes... well that's lame because there's no need to raise fatigue, just dump everything into hps and magicka.

If the reverse is true and increasing your three stats increases str, end, speed, etc, in an "under the hood' manner and perks are all related to enhancing skills then the system might be pretty slick.

I dunno though, haven't played the game yet or read an interview where a dev explained it in detail.

I have played TES. In TES games, intelligence governed how much magicka my character had. It also governed how I behaved, and even influenced some quests (the drunken bounty hunter quest in Morrowind, for instance). A low intelligence character did act more stupidly than a very intelligent one. A low intelligence character would not understand obvious clues and would not know tactics beyond "chaaarge!", while a very intelligent one would easily understand complex topics and develop smart strategies to overcome powerful enemies. That has nothing to do with magicka. They have taken away the attribute itself.

The weapon skill itself also determined how much damage you did in Oblivion, not just strength. I think damage is determined by just weapon skill now, but that's just what I am assuming.

For that matter, you don't need a game to tell you how to role play.

So what's your point?

If you're stating that you lament its loss for roleplaying purposes, why can't you still roleplay? Considering that the intelligence attribute had no actual effect on the character's percieved intelligence (unlike in New Vegas, for example), there's no reason to keep it for anything but roleplaying purposes, and in that case it's just a word and has no real effect on the game. You can roleplay however you want, regardless.

I really cant say yay or nah until I play the game and see how it feels. So, for the time being until after release date I think I'm pretty much gunna stay neutral on this topic.

Which is why people have said over and over and over again that the better approach would've been to keep attributes AND FIX THEM. So that they made more sense in the game world and so that they had further-reaching effects.

The fact that attributes were poorly implemented in Oblivion is not a condemnation of attributes - it's a condemnation of how they were implemented in Oblivion. Just as burning a steak doesn't mean that steak is bad - it just means that you did a lousy job of cooking it.

The beautiful thing is that the game doesn't tell me how to. I tell the game how I want to RP by doing it. I don't need mundane numbers.

Well I'm betting your going to be given a set amount of perks to choose from right after you create your character, if that's even possible, which I'm sure it is. Then you choose your stones based on what you want to be, I bet if you don't choose the warrior stone then you won't be good with 2H weapons I.E swing very slowly, more weight, less attack power, and what not.

Now that's an assumption so guess we will have to wait and see.

Fair enough, and probably the most cogent argument I've actually read on this forum.

However, I don't really feel like I'm in the position to tell Bethesda how to run their skill and attribute system, as I never used it in such a manner in the first place (I will only roleplay with attributes and skills that actually effect the gameplay in a meaningful way), and I don't mind how it's been changed. :shrug:

...You still needed a high blunt skill...My Archer picked up blade at level 38 with his still at 5. Even though my strenth was in the 80's, the blades did jack...becuase my blade skill was low. Now one's ability to use a weapon is based entirely on his skill with the weapon..makes sense to me.

Attributes had ther place, but the more I play Oblivion and Morrowind the more I find myself worrying over silly stat boosts and making sure I can get a 5,5,1...then I realize I won't have to be nerotic to play Skyrim and I become overjoyed.

I liked certaina spects of attributes but at this point, I'm willing to try something new..take the few cons and embrace the potential pros.

I'm glad you quoted that post. I noticed it when it went up and applauded it, but it was a bit off-topic for the thread, so I didn't pursue the subject.

Yes - beyond everything else, it is, to me, painfully clear that most of Beth's excuses for many of the things they've done - from the elimination of attributes to the probable elimination of spellmaking to combining armor slots - are just that - excuses. Many of them, like the "more NPCs on screen" one for combining armor slots, are obviously false. The rest seem to range from diversionary talking points ("spreadsheety" and "redundant") to fairly blatant misrepresentations ("the only reason anyone ever increased intelligence was to get more magicka"). I don't think we've seen a valid explanation yet for a single one of them - all we've seen is talking points, carefully designed to be superficially compelling enough to be repeated by the faithful.

I tend to think that the obvious misrepresentation of the true reasons for these changes is part of what fuels the ongoing criticism. I also tend to think that the blatant misrepresentations of what we have seen are good evidence for why we've seen so little - all they've put out so far is stuff regarding which they think they might have a good enough excuse to get by. I have little doubt that there's much more to come, and that it's going to be that much harder to excuse.....

I highly doubt they are removing stuff and deceiving us about why they are doing it. Bethesda seems full of gamers not corporate thugs.