I have to admit that my first reaction when I heard attributes were gone was "They are dumbing down TES!!". I see a lot of people still believe this after playing the game. I see a TON of posts saying that Skyrim is dumbed down as compared to Oblivion because attributes are gone.

The truth is... I actually like the new perk system! I even prefer having perks vs the attributes in Skyrim.

Of course if I was give a choice I would prefer to have perks AND attributes. But if we are purely comparing Oblivion (no perks) vs Skyrim (no attributes), I actually prefer the system in Skyrim.

Before someone flames me, I have to clarify that I am referring to the system itself. I am not saying Bethesda did an excellent job coming up with Perks or making sure they are all balanced/useful. I think this is something that Bethesda should be able to improve in TES VI.

I think perks are much more strategic than having attributes. In Oblivion if I was a mage I would simply dump points into Willpower and Intelligence. I find myself thinking more about how to spend perk points than attribute points.

Also, I am not claiming the TES series has been leaning towards "simplifying" gameplay. Morrowind was a much deeper game, and then a lot of things were dumbed down in Oblivion, and now the same in Skyrim (ie. spellmaking, alchemy, armor types, etc.). All I am saying is that the perk system in Skyrim is an improvement over Oblivion's system.

perks have nothing to do with attributes. they were in past es games, just not called perks. they seperated the perks from the skills and pretended to add something new.

"Perks" in Oblivion were crap, unnamed and more of an oh that's nice than a functional separate aspect of the game. And I agree attributes and perks should not be compared. My only gripe about Perks in Skyrim is the same as the worries I had in after playing Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. Namely the relative uselessness of some Perks. A problem that Skyrim unfortunately has shared with those games.

I love it. It makes the game more ... ... WoW like.

I would like to have both...Where is lvling an attribute you get a perk. But thats just me, I don't like picking perks, id much rather them just get unlocked. But im lazy.

perks are part of your skills, not your attributes

i dont like the perks on this game only because you can't reassign them if you regret you decision..... and you can't get all the perks... if you play this game for such a long time you deserve to be able to get all the perks

Now there is a conceit that no gaming development team is or should be under any obligation to fulfill.

I haven't played Oblivion in a while so maybe I am wrong, but I don't remember it having perks like Skyrim.

I know perks and attributes are different. That being said, they are both part of the level progression. In Oblivion you had to chose attribute points when you leveled, while in Skyrim you chose perks (plus the Magicka/Health/stamina).

I am not comparing Skyrim to older ES games, just Oblivion.

First off they are abilities, not perks. Perk is a word used by fallout as a touch of fallout flavor, and doesn't belong in the elder scrolls series. They can call them perks all they want but that does not make it so. Another mod I am going to make is changing them back to what they should be called. its also amazing that it took them two games to finally call it stamina instead of Fatigue.

Should have made it where you could choose any one of the abilities in the tree at any skill level but have incrementally better versions of that ability depending on the skills level. like I hate that I have to spend one of my points on a useless Ability so i can get to one I am going to use. If they are going to do that kind of crap, then make it to where some abilities cost more than one ability point.

I like the Perk system because it shifts the development of your character away from one initial attribute-delivering screen, and into your hands as you play. I can build my character as I go, which is not only more interesting and immersive for me, but also convenient. I started the game thinking that i wanted a destro-mage, but after about six or seven levels I found myself drawn to playing a warrior. The current skill and perk system meant that I was completely free to make that change so early in the game.

I would ideally like a combination of perks and attributes, but I feel like the flexibility and dynamism of perks is a fair replacement for attributes.

perks were in the skills, you got one at every 25 skill interval. you had to read your skill window that would pop up at 25, 50, 75, 100 skill ups to see what it gave you(might have also been in the menu somewhere, dont really remember). most, if not all perks in skyrim are identical to perks from oblivion. they are just more visible now.

It's great, I love the perks. Definitely look forward to leveling up more than increasing some boring numbers. Even if most perks are basically just a bunch of numbers in disguise, they are at least interesting and exciting.

And I don't miss attributes, they were pointless in previous elder scrolls games.

LOL then you dont understand how the games work.

I agree, OP. As far as I'm concerned, Perks are superior in every way to Attributes, and provide way more opportunities for RP than a mere number value.

Attributes and perks increase specific statistics. No matter what names you have or how you organize them, increasing specific statistics is what happens.

You could have a mountain of complication in order to increase 1 statistic or you could have that statistics by itself that you increase directly.

Oblivion had more things to adjust that made smaller changes. This is why attributes were said to only ever be increasing magicka, health, or stamina. You could say that stamina also accounts for speed because of longer sprinting, but that has really just been removed.

Many things were removed, and overcomplication can result in unique and rare instances that cannot occur in a "perfectly streamlined" system that simply lists the generic statistics with no unnecessary complication whatsoever. It seems that people prefer a hideous, deformed, overcomplicated system because the uniqueness of the results that it yields. New players can't handle the complication. The solution is to....
1st-- keep all of the complication IN THE GAME
2nd-- have parts of the complication removed at the start and optionally added on right from the start with a warning of overcomplication for the player
3rd-- from start to finish, further complications are reactivated to allow the game's full function to return.

This is designed for new players, but the true form of the game is designed for hardcoe. Players can simply activate this complication from the start if they so choose, rendering the divide between new and dedicated players nonexistent.

DEVELOPERS NEED TO DO THIS! (especially the optional choice of activating everything from the start)


p.s. cod4 and subsequent multiplayer games' leveling systems are meant to do this, but they have been abused and turned into an addiction. Killzone 2 demonstrates this system fairly well by forcing you into servers only with things you've unlocked allowed. However, having to "level up" instead of having an option to unlock everything from the start is wrong for knowledgeable players.

im not telling them to fulfill my obligations, i just think im right

When you use the word "deserve" you're expressing an entitlement. More specifically in this case a perceived entitlement.

As for me, I find myself somewhere in the middle. I believe the post below is on target in terms of the wide variety of perks we get to choose from:



Recall in Morrowind and Oblivion you were given only one perk every 25 points of skill level increase. Skyrim is definitely an upgrade.

On the other hand, there have been multiple threads in the forums describing the loss of the role-playing aspects in the game. I find myself agreeing there, too. Our initial character starting out is only as unique as the race that we choose. There are no variations for attributes, initial chosen skills, six, birthsign, etc. It's a great game, don't get me wrong. If we could have a choice for full character immersion at the outset (and let the new or novice TES players have their basic new character choices) I would be in favor of that.

I understand exactly how the games work. The attributes didn't do anything except modify your stats, they had no effect on the gameplay other than that, might as well skip them completely and just let you increase your stats directly like in Skyrim.

Lets say in Oblivion you have a dunmer wizard with 100 intelligence, and I have a nord berserker with 30 intelligence. In what way is your character actually shown to be smarter than mine? Sure you have more magicka reserves, but is that really what passes for intelligence on Nirn?

your use of the word upgrade is completely subjective. what u call an upgrade might be someone elses (mine) downgrade. so be careful.



as for this topic, im kinda on the negative side of things. i miss being able to play to the fullest extent of my ability and still being challenged. morrowind and oblivion had that. i could min-max and still get some sense of challenge. maxing out something was a real achievement. now, it takes a few hours and recasting the same spell in town over and over again... AND you level up as u level a perk. thats dumbing the game down twice as much as i wanted... wonderful...

i HATE having to roleplay a half-braindead character who hasnt realized that he can sit in town and become god. i HATE having to handicap myself. the more i have to think about having to handicap myself just to have fun in this game, the worse the game is for me.

you can dispute it all u want but the fact is, theres nothing i can do about it until mods come out.

Using Morrowind and Oblivion this way is both ironic and a poor poor choice. Namely because it's long been a Morrowind realization by players that you could become rather godlike in that game so Morrowind and challenge are hard things to put together. In the case of Oblivion the "challenge" came due to a widely blasted level scaling and leveling system. Oblivion was challenging because it was crap is not a good design path to keep following and Bethesda didn't. Opinion's may be subjective but if the choices is that sort of opinion or the field the field wins out.

Also the cast a spell or use an ability in a certain areas, situations,etc to power level is has been in Morrowind, Oblivion AND Skyrim.

OP, I really think it is a very streamlined and sixy system. Personally this aspect of the game is why I think this is such a great game. The attributes and perks seem to flow very well together in a system crafted towards customization.

If they learn anything, they should know that this one change, along with the UI changes, are what made this game so fracking great! I would be honestly ticked off if this game looked the same but had the old attributes and UI systems. I couldn't play it that way.

Looking up at the stars is gorgeous! Only having Majicka, Health, and Stamina seems simple, but honestly very complex systems can be built on it. And the shouts add an even better aspect to the game as well. It is not so much that it seems minimalist, but that imo it is FAR more user friendly and sixy.

I hate Skyrim's perks system. I think they should've used New Vegas's character customization system instead. Its levelling gaming was better too.

Lol at the guy t that said "most, if not all, perks in skyrim were also in oblivion". Are you dense? Yea there are a couple, but for the most park the perks are new. U only got 4 perks Per skill in oblivion. Obvioslusly your butthurt over attributes and now your making [censored] claims. Well I'll let you in on a secret. You sound like an idiot.