I know that a while back, people seemed a bit unsure about the direction Skyrim was moving in (removal of attributes and some skills, addition of perks), so I figured I'd do a little litmus test to see what people thought now.

Personally, I'm very satisfied, especially with the implementation of perks. Here's an example of what I mean:

"Character development has been changed as well; "class" selection and "attributes" selection are no longer used, and instead of the twenty-one skills in Oblivion (twenty-seven in Morrowind), Skyrim will feature eighteen skills (four of the removed skills are Hand to Hand, Mysticism, Athletics, and Acrobatics). Sixteen skills have been confirmed: Speechcraft, Alchemy, Illusion, Conjuration, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Enchanting, Smithing, Heavy Armor, Block, Two Handed, One Handed, Archery, Light Armor, and Sneak.[5] Faster player level increases can be achieved by increasing developed skills. Activating a Guardian Stone will speed the increase of its governed skills.[5] Gaining a level also grants the player level-specific skill abilities and an increase in health along with an option for a greater increase in health, or an increase in magicka or stamina. Each skill has a perk tree, and a player must choose a perk when leveling up. The confirmed perks for Block are: Shield Wall, Deadly Bash, Power Bash, Bash Disarm, Shield Charge, Deflect Arrows, Elemental Protection, Quick Reflexes.[5]" (http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Skyrim).

Smithing: we can mine, gather resources, create weapons and armor, improve weapons and armor, etc. etc. etc. Have any of you played minecraft? This feature alone has made me hugely excited for Skyrim.

Perks: check out the bolded sentence about the perks for bash. While we may have fewer skills overall, the increased depth of each skill is stunning (to me). In Oblivion, when we leveled up our Block skill, we'd get better at blocking and eventually get some passive buffs (block at the right time and potentially stagger an enemy, etc.). They've expanded this with perks in a more active way: rather than just blocking, you can actively bash with your shield, deflect arrows, or gain passive elemental protection.

All this for what isn't a very exciting skill in the first place. Imagine what sort of perks we'll get for skills like Alteration, or Archery (we know some already), or Sneak.

Sneak in particular seems to have quite a bit of potential. Being in the Dark Brotherhood should be even more exciting.


Based on the above, I'm not worried. What skills we have have more depth than before. Certain games, like Dragon Age II, really did lose RPG elements. It doesn't look like Skyrim is going down that path to me. They've changed the model a bit, but it all seems to be in the spirit of improving gameplay and RPG elements rather than simplifying it.

I think most things are improvements. I'm still iffy on how things will work without acrobatics and athletics, but as long as speed and jump height aren't locked I'll be fine.

Yeah that's valid. They've suggested that races should still feel very different and have unique perks and abilities, but at the same time I believe they've said all races start with the same running speed/jump height and the like...

I sort of get the feeling that it'll be locked, but I could see that being changed with certain perks. Too soon to tell for things that like, unfortunately

I'm looking forward to them. I love the changes they made, as they make the game different and more interesting for me.

I sure hope this thread doesn't turn ugly.....

I'm not worried about the lack of stats or the removal of certain skills or pauldrons, separate greaves, etc.

I am only hoping for

• greater complexity in the organizations the PC can join and how they interact with other organizations
  
• greater complexity in the reputation and disposition system for each of the Nine Holds as well as numerous other factions
  
• more quests with multiple ways to complete them, especially the Civil War
  
• more complexity in the economy system
  
• more complexity in the interactions and relationships with NPCs
  
• more layers of activities you can do that have an impact on the world
  
• some sort of survival features involving hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, hypothermia

for me those features are a lot more important than attributes.

I couldn't agree more. The activities I mentioned amount to little more than menial labor. That's exciting, the ability to live in a home in Skyrim and act like a citizen: mine, smith, trade your goods, farm, etc...But it doesn't change the game world.

Fortunately, they've mentioned that they want people to be able to change the gameworld in a more meaningful way (more akin to Fallout 3 than Oblivion). Remember Megaton, if you played Fallout 3? Those sorts of choices, only more significant, more fleshed out.

I'm hopeful for quests like that, but we likely won't find out until we get to play for ourselves.

The economic system should be more complex, if they deliver on that notion of being able to destroy a city's production facilities, requiring them to purchase goods from other cities or whatever. A neat concept, but I honestly expect it to be cut...We'll see though, they got horses into the game, and that was iffy =)

As for organizations...who knows? I hope they deliver.


Edit: those of you who voted "No", would you care to elaborate and explain what changes aren't satisfactory?

I'm not at all convinced by the new perks system. The impression I get is that it's just going to give the player neatly packaged boosts, rather than simulating character progression.

What annoys me most though is the removal of athletics and acrobatics. I always focus on athletics, acrobatics, agility, etc. in TES games (and in RPGs in general) - so they've effectively removed the way I like to roleplay.

Overall, it just seems to me like they're trying to simplify the RPG aspect of the game while focusing more on action and cinematics.

The open-world aspect of the game definitely seems to be improving, along with certain life sim aspects... which is good; but this should not be confused with RPG aspects.

Yep, I'd agrree that the game world will have far more effect on how good a RPG Skyrim is than game mechanics.

Less stats, more non combat things to do, imho that comes about even in the rp stakes. As long as speechcraft has a well thought out perk tree, pretty sure I will be happy enough.

Yes, you have raised some great points here, however, these activities will change the game world.

NPC animations result in real in-game items being created. For example, a blacksmith performing a sword-making animation creates a new sword that gets added to his inventory. Farmers performing farming animations create new produce or farmed goods that they then transport to merchants, where presumably some sort of exchange of goods and gold takes place.

Any animation that the NPCs can do, the PC is able to do, so we will also be able to mine, for example, resulting in real in-game ore being added to our inventory, or chop down a tree and wood gets added to our inventory.

Also it's been reported in a few different interviews that towns rely on certain resources, like wood, farmed goods, mined metals, etc., and it is possible to destroy a lumbermill or set fire to a farm, resulting in a huge impact on the economy of the town.

Some very promising improvements.

Of course it's boring to just be able to block with your shield. But why do I need a perk to bash someone with it? Because before that my shield arm is velcroed to my body? If they want to change something here, they should call the skill "shield use" and gradually increase what you can pull off. Perks are arbitrary limitations. They add neither depth nor freedom, but medals that people can wear proudly on their chest and brag about.

The only thing that's stunning here is that it took them so long to realize that no, you don't just carry a shield around in front of you and occasionally try to block an incoming strike. But that's also an issue of how to model the controls. Perks don't really add anything meaningfull other than totally arbitrary limitations and stepwise changes in what should be a gradual process.

They got rid of acrobatics and athletics because they were basically meaningless skills. I mean, they put a skill in a game for RUNNING. Everyone is going to RUN. Acrobatic had more of a meaning but it really didn't play a signifigant role. Or they just wanted people to stop using the rooftops and springboards.

An incredibly realistic and believable world makes a great open-world experience, and can certainly add to the RPG experience, but without the stats and game mechanics, it's nothing more than an open-world action game in a realistic environment. People constantly seem to get the open-world and RPG aspects in open-world RPGs confused...

That said, let's not turn this into another "what makes an RPG" argument.

[quote name='sheogorath88' timestamp='1311800451' post='18196559']


What annoys me most though is the removal of athletics and acrobatics. I always focus on athletics, acrobatics, agility, etc. in TES games (and in RPGs in general) - so they've effectively removed the way I like to roleplay.

To my knowledge they are not removing Agility and Speed attributes. They are just taking away athletics because you were able to gain experience simply by running. Increasing your speed and agility attributes is probably the way you will gain running speed and jump height.

Not satisfied at all. Removal of attributes and less customization limit role playing. I've explained why in a few dozen threads already so I wont do it again. I understand with the changes in the leveling system though and dont have a problem with it. The new one might even be better. I'm hoping that they would add rpg elements instead of removing them. So far the only thing that comes to mind is perks, which isnt such a deep element anyways, and a few skills that allow some customization like enchanting and smithing. A few things I'm hoping for:

-Choices and consequences with difficult and varied choices that dont have the obvious good and evil ones and have something for all types of characters
-More dialogue and more chances to say things your character would want to say. Also the dialogue needs more depth
-More interaction with npcs in general
-More complexity and choices in factions. Players needs to be able to make choices instead of only given one way to do quests (mages guild in Oblivion for example) and and the factions should be a lot more important and aware of the things happening around them
-A hardcoe mode which makes survival and combat a lot more realistic and adds immersion

BootySweat's list was also very good and I completely agree.

TES is improving as an action-adventure but is becoming a worse rpg. Skyrim will most likely be a very good sandbox action-adventure but not such a good rpg.

They could have put in more uses. Actually quite easy...

Attributes are gone, my friend. To my knowledge, the only way to improve how fast my character can run is to wear lighter armour. Kind've stupid really.

I can not really know until I mess around with the perk system. I could be very interesting if each perk gave you a new skill or some in game representation of character development. For example, for combat new moves similar to how in oblivion received new power moves at each mastery level. Or for magic, perks that would have special effects to magic casted. Ex. make a fireball into a firestorm, or heal spell that also cures disease. And for non combat, just unique additions to the dialogue or movement.

In short, I will not know if I will like the RPG elements until I play the game, otherwise, I am hopeful.

I completely disagree with your statement.

stats + dice rolls =/= role playing game

playing a role and making your own choices about what you want to do = role playing game

the more choices of what you can do, the deeper the RPG aspect of the game.

the more layers to the game world, layers of activities, complex organizations you can join, complexity of the economy, complexity of the interaction with NPCs, complexity of the quests, all those things add up to one result... more choices

we could have all the stats from arena, daggerfall, but if that took place in a game world where there is nothing deeper going on, no choices of what we can do except step one - enter dungeon - step two attack monster using strength score to determine damage - etc., in a strictly linear fashion without player choice, the RPG aspect would obviously suffer tremendously

The RPG elements are strong, I don't see any problems.

I'm really satisfied, there's more going in Skyrim than Oblivion, and I LOVE Oblivion.

take out alchemy bring back hand to hand i think alchemy was the LEAST used skill in the game

Where did it ever say you could destroy a lumbermill or set fire to a farm? Provide a link to the site where it confirms this.

This, along with more complexity in the magic system.