So after doing a bunch of research and number crunching the past few days as I try to get my class builds all in order, I've come across a lot of information regarding to stats and the way they work which is quite concerning.

Basically it appears that, according to most of the closed beta testers that are already at endgame, almost everyone will end up putting all or most of their stat points into health as it's quite easy to reach the soft cap for mana and stamina, even armour as well.

What I mean is that for something like armour, you can fairly easily reach the soft cap, even the hard cap maybe, through spells and enchantments. For instance one player at veteran rank 5 can hard cap his armour even while only wearing light armour. This pretty much renders heavy armour useless in my mind.

The same for basic stats, it's quite easy to reach the soft cap for mana and stamina without putting many, or even any points into them. So effectively you can just dump all your stat points into health and suffer very little in the way of consequences, even if you're a pure mage or something and have no plans to be tanking, it still appears to be the best use of your stat points.

Now I've already been a bit scared at just how shallow ZOS is going with the stats and sticking with Skyrim's very lackluster and shallow stat system and I'm already scared enough as it is that thanks to only having 3 very basic stats we're going to see a LOT of similar builds, but now I'm worried that it may not even go that far and everyone will just have all their points into health because it's the most viable option.

Maybe it's just that I come from a long line of deep number/stat based MMO's, and they're always my favourites, but right now the stat system is really worrying for me in terms of possibilities for diversity. The entire idea of being able to cap stats seems redundant to me, but I guess there must be a good reason for it, even if we do end up with issues like this.

Does anyone by chance have any word on if ZOS is aware of these issues and is planning on revising them or is it stuck like this for the forseeable future? And I also welcome open discussion, I would love to hear other people's thought on this and I'm sorry if this has already been brought up.

This is one of the main beta testers that I'm going off of for this information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7PJgAwtx9Y

Isn't it the same for other mmos ? The vid I seen with all points in magician saw 7% DMG increase but low health ie the glass cannon, so guessing all in health would be a meat shield with lower DMG.

'I'm not concerned; it's just details and health is essential.

In a way yes, although I think it's a bit overkill in ESO, but in most other games it isn't capped to the point where 2 of your 3 stats can cap without ever putting any points into them, effectively rendering them useless and making only 1 possible viable stat build, namely dumping all your points into the 1 stat that can't be easily soft capped.

I don't know maybe I'm being too old fashioned here, but in an MMO I strongly believe there should be as much room as possible for character and build diversity, and having only 3 stats severely limits that enough as it is, but to have only 1 of those stats even be viable almost completely removes the stat diversity aspects, everyone will just have all their points thrown into HP. Maybe I'm just missing a massive stat list personally, but it bothers me.

Not the slightest bit concerned even if it is true. Skill point allocation, gear/weapons and player skill at playing their favoured build is what counts.

Personally I think Skyrim's armor rating system is terrible.

Per point of armor should give a linear increase in effective health. Ie a diminishing formula like:

Damage reduction = armor / (armor 100) x 100%

Thus 100 armor means a 50% damage reduction.
200 armor means a 66% damage reduction.

Thus you never reach 100% damage reduction and at the same time, your effective health is increased by 1% per armor.