but thats so freak'n lame, that would be so exploitable it would be rediculous. sneaky characters would be able to have the stats of a tank, how can any one even think its possible to take that seriously. so where is the balance in that?

Jumping around aimlessly is "working harder"? Give me a break.

Attributes were flawed in Oblivion. Armorer, Block, and Heavy Armor are good skills for a warrior to have majored however in Oblivion they were governed by Endurance meaning you pick those 3 as majors your endurance suffers. You'll still be able to get it up to 100 but it takes an extra 7 to 10 levels to do so. We don't need Attributes when Skills do the same thing and the fact is with Attributes it's not that hard to get to 100 which makes your character god. That's a bad thing the game should be hard hence the new leveling system. Now it's going to be a lot harder to get everything up to 100. You still can do it but you'll suffer by not being able to select good perks that you need if your say a warrior or a battlemage. It's not simplification it's replacing something that is flawed with something that fixes the problem.

not to mention more fun gameplay implications. when is the last time attributes let your axe cause bleeding or your bow-zoom cause slow down

Exactly. They are a bit pointless really...

dont get me wrong, I dont' hate perks, its a little known fact that OB had perks (we earned them rather than picked from a list but I digress) but I just think its insane and possibly disasterous to base character design solely around what perks you pick. I shouldn't have to decide between picking a cool but frivilous perk or ones that are necessary for the development of my character, especially from the role playing perspective.

WOW so thats just great.. combine EVERYTHING so that a player can experience EVERYTHING in one go! thanks bethesda i always wanted your games to be easier.. All that complexity definitely didnt bring you guys so much fame. I liked having to raise my mysticism skill and and speach craft and mercantile on their own.. now its all mashed together.. not happy with some of their choices..

if i read correctly, perks are made available to be "bought" by increasing skills. so you have to earn the skills first before even thinking about acquiring the perks.

You still earn perks but now you have control over which ones you earn.

thats fine but we didn't have to get rid of attributes to accomplish this, they could have fixed the problems with attributes as well as add in a perk tree, they only wasted their time making a completly different system.

I think the only attribute I will miss is speed, and if attributes are gone what about the modify attribute spell effect, that means were are probably getting more spells becuase they had to get rid of those

The only way they could've fixed the problem with Attributes was to get rid of the Skill Govern part. Basically have it be 3 points per level for 3 Attributes regardless of how many skill points you put into certain skill for that level. That would've been the only way for it to work but they took the other option and went with a new system.

i think people equate streamlining far too easily and quickly with simplification. Also simplified has subtle meanings depending on context. Also simple does not equal bad either. People demand innovation from gaming companies but then get upset when they encounter innovation.

It seems to me that the history of this series from what i have read and the video interviews i have seen is for bethesda to revamp and completely overhaul the game. You would think that after the 5th instalment of the series that players would come to expect this type of major change with the game series.

how can Bethesda betray their series with changes when the tradition of the series is to start anew with each instament?

What about the countless builds that could be built around different perk combinations? Is it simplified because the content you used to base a character around has been (supposedly) replaced by a much more personal and expansive system?

Besides, with the way you "leveled" attributes in Morrowind and Oblivion, it was very hard to enjoy a character while trying to build them around something like Agility or Speed. If you were really serious about it, you had to keep track of when you would level and what you were leveling. To guarantee five attribute multipliers, sometimes it was necessary to make an important skill for the build a minor just to ensure it could be leveled enough without leveling the whole player. The micro-managing "play to win or be handicapped" leveling system was always my first priority when it came to mods (love GCD and nGCD). If Skyrim would keep the attributes and just alter the way they're leveled I'd be more than happy, but I'm looking forward to seeing the perks in action. Only then will anyone really know what we gain and what we lose between systems.

All that said, I think Bethesda changed too much on us too fast. Attributes alongside perks would have been great, and save the attribute removal for TES VI. If there is one, of course.

People often confuse making things less complicated with dumbing things down.

Take this topic, for example.

i'll have to see it in action first before i can make a judgement, it might work far better, worse or relatively the same compared to the previous system. we just have to wait and see.

their bought by leveling up, and you level up by increasing your skills, so there is a gaping logic hole where I can choose alchemy related perks even if I exclusively used weapon skills. so you get access to types of perks for skills that you haven't even used. based on what they've said so far, we'll see when we see but I am not too optumistic about it.



we had complete control before, each skill had 4 perks and you earned them every incremental increase in that skill by 25, the difference is that there are more perks and no attributes, I am not against more perks, just against needlessly tossing a system that was not as broken as people complained when they could have improved the system and have tons of perks. instead they arbitarily ditched one for the other and it makes no sense.

BGS always tries something new and they aim high with it. Fallout 3 is an example of that as they added a whole bunch of stuff to the game and it's completely different from FO1 and 2.

Skyrim should be no different.

You liked running around for countless hours? You must have a lot of spare time by the time I got Blade to 100 my Athletics were like 37 - 50

Not to mention that it takes about 100 hours to master Athletics and no master trainer for Athletics because the NPC trainer is bugged.

Im saying if there is no way to jump high at all. They've basically said 'perks replace a lot of stuff etc.' and that 'Perks are directly governed by skills'. No mention of general perks. If acrobatics has been cut and there's no skill for a perk tree to be associated with it, you could hypothesise that its gone outright until we get more info. So if there was no way to jump high, thats losing a whole gameplay mechanic. Hopefully there is general perks, because I dont know what perk tree it could be in with the skills that we know have been confirmed.

You could raise your mercantile or speechcraft separately, and get the mastery perks, but if, and I mean if, there are different speechcraft perks for haggling, lying, streetwise and etiquette etc., then it's actally a more complex, and more importantly, a more choice-driven system.
I have said this many times, not sure, but we may be losing 21 skills, and gaining 18 skill groups. What if you have to take separate perks in conjuration, so you either become proficient at summoning Daedra, OR undead, how is that combining everything?

How should we know?, they have barely revealed information.

All we know is that there are perks and they removed attributes, way too soon to ask this question to us ;p.

a little info from a preview:

Each skill unlocks a series of perks, which add multiple new abilities – such as a slow-time mode for arrow shooting. Each perk has certain requirements, not purely having unlocked the one below it. “You see a perk you like and say ‘I’m going to start using my sword more because I want that perk”


http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim/

If you have to use less of your intellegence to do something than another that is dumbing something down. but thats not the point, the old system was not too complecated, it just took more effort to learn but once you knew it the whole process was simple. we've ditched a proven method for one that has yet to prove it will work for the sake of making something easier, and its not about not wanting change, its about wanting improvement rather than haveing a completely different system that does the same thing. its redundent