Any character was usable (unless you put all of your time into non-combat skills/attributes, and even then you're not entirely hopeless) and unless you're overly concerned about what difficulty you're playing at you can never get gimped.



Nice strawman. What I was referring to was characters made that don't actually fulfill any RP purposes and are more just serve the point of getting achievements or the 100% completed game or something similarly non-immersive.



May be saying the "right way" was a poor choice of words, but the fact of the matter is that there isn't only ONE way to play. Number crunching isn't all there is to the games and if you play as far and away from that (within reason obviously. All stat systems require some sort of number crunching at some point. Just a matter of deciding how far you'll take it) you'll have a highly different experience. And that is my point. Most anti-attribute people don't seem to get that there is more than one way to play.

And I'm sure you'll point out Oblivion, but I think its universally agreed that Oblivion's vanilla system is fairly broken and thus not really relevant.



Sure we can. But having attributes allows us to do this even better and create an even more specifically defined character.



It doesn't make it any more powerful. But having a higher intelligence gives you the ability to shell out more spells than the other guy firing the same spell with lower intelligence.



Thats precisely how the games work. Just because you are forced to get skill boosts at the beginning of the game doesn't mean you can't still do whatever it is you want to do.

In Fallout (the first one), your PC can stand in with the Brotherhood students in the combat training class, and if they remain there for the duration of the class, they get improved unarmed combat skill.

I can see entering a gym, and using the weights for an hour, and getting an increase... but I think that it should be fractional.

*But if you workout 4 hours a day all week all year, you should get some kind of result for your hobby. (could come with injury too :chaos:)
This only makes sense in a game that takes time very seriously though.

And while I'm all for a graphical representation of the improvement (or disability), I would still want that change reflected in the PC's included attributes.

As a human being, I don't define myself by a set of numbers. I don't flex my biceps while looking in the mirror any think, "Yep, I'm definitely a Strength 30." So why should I do the same with the character I play in a game if I don't have to? If I want to know how strong I am, I can look in my inventory screen and see how much I can carry. That's the only meaningful value I really need to know. One reason why I like playing Bethesda games is the sense of immersion they provide me. Unlike any other games I've gotten into, I get a feeling like it's actually me interacting with the game world. And having to rely on a bunch of numbers in order to define my character just seems artificial to me. The whole process of developing my character becomes more organic if I don't have to bother with any of that.

And having all three of these things is just going to end up creating alot of redundancy, there was already enough of that in Oblivion. If I can choose to take a perk that does pretty much the same thing as an attribute would, what's the point of having it in the game? The game can function just fine with only skills and perks, so why add some extra layer of pseudo-complexity if it's not really needed.



That's true to a certain, but only in certain areas. I don't become more Intelligent if I go out and get myself a Master's degree, I just become more educated. There's a big difference.

How much can you lift? Most RPG's (these days) define strength as carry weight, but originally many defined it as how much you can dead lift; and carry weight was roughly ? of that.

*That would be you Strength stat.

Years ago, some friends wanted to play a PnP game with us as the PC's.. so we looked at the rules, all pressed weights, raced, hopped from post to post, walked fences and measured the rest by consensus.
Got bored with it too. :laugh:

No argument there.

You just game me an idea that still shows the attributes and maybe there is a way to increase them by doing. But it would have to be actions unrelated to weapons and armor and there would be a point that you can only do so much of these actions untill they will have no effect anymore. So you had better be cognizant of where you want to spend your time because all actions drain from the same time pool. Once that time is pool is up, no more points go anywhere, but the specialized actions you do attribute to the specialized attribute point.

ie. Going to the gym, reading books on magic attack, reading books on magic defense, running on a track, etc..

But that stat value is displayed twice in an attribute system. Once as a Strength number and once as a carry weight value in my Inventory screen. I don't need both, and the one in my inventory screen is by far the most relevant.

Not so... The one in the inventory is just what you can carry, the strength stat would reflect the PC's ability to bash or lift open a door, move an obstacle, or win an arm wrestling match (Always try to win those :spotted owl:).

Bel...skyrim isnt real life...its a game, you can feel yourself...you can feel your limitations...you cannot feel the limitations of your Character and no there aren't visual cues in Skyrim to suggest otherwise....so yes...the game should depict what your character can and cannot do based on the games rules....the game can't read your mind..

YOu guys are thinking about this alot lol. I just think it will be easier without a strength number and a speed number and the rest to worry about. besides Bethedsa wouldn't take them away if it wasn't better cuz they allready played the game so they know. They made Oblivion and Fallout the best games ever so I know there going to make Skyrim the most epic game now.

But I don't need a number to determine those things, either I can bash down the door or I can't. There's certainly no stat on the door telling me how much of a Strength value I need in order to bash it down.

In Morrowind, it was very important to select a class, race, birthsign, and gender that complemented each other's attribute and skill bonuses. You had some leeway, but it was more than possible to make a character that could never hit a mudcrab. If you didn't take care to watch and work the numbers, it was not hard to end up with a bad character. Additionally, if you picked a class that had non-combat skills as majors, and dared use those skills, you'd level faster than your combat skills improved, leaving you in a world full of monsters that outclassed you.

Oblivion had a similar problem, but it's harder to guage due to level scaling. With mods that fix the level scaling, though, you find you need to watch your skills and attributes the same way.

Certainly I can. If I go up against an Ogre and get my butt kicked, I know I'm not tough enough to take on those types of creatures. That's all the input I need to know.



And all that can be handled in the background just like the hundreds of other values that are already dealt with in that way.

Actually... I was rather thinking that the game would do a stat check and see if the PC was able to crack the door.

Also the game could take into account just how low the roll was... and if it only succeeded by a point or two, have the PC succeed but injure themselves doing it.

*This a big part of why I'm a proponent of Stat based RPGs, because it allows the designer unlimited freedom to construct reasonable tests of the stats and script sensible results; for all stats, not just strength.

**And yes.. there could be a stat for the door that adds to your stat check for bashing (making it harder or even impossible to bash the door ~representing that the door is thicker or more dense than you are likely to break).

Well certainly that would occur, but the door isn't going to tell me how much Strength I need in order to bash it down. That value should be invisible to me, just like it is in real life. Maybe the door just looks solid but is actually mostly rotten inside and easily bashed, or it might have been reinforced with steel. I simply won't know until I actually try it. So having that value at my disposal becomes meaningless to me.

This is exactly why they make stat checks and weighted skill rolls in RPGs; to account for random happenstance, like interior wood rot; or that years ago somebody jammed the lock and its harder to pick than it looks.

The actual (invented) reason is moot, just the result matters.

Honestly, if the game actually supported the the presence of wood rot, then I would not care about the stat check so much. But I don't think its really worth it, when a stat check does just fine and is cheap.

You're missing my point. I don't have to know the calculations involved behind that stat check, the game will handle it in the background. It works the same way for almost everything attributes can do, it's simply not relevant information I need in order to play the game.

And if you for some stupid reason designed your character that way it was your fault, not the games. Do remember that this is going to be just as possible in Skyrim, (not the whole never hit thing, but creating a combat-useless character) so do not act as if something is being improved in this regard.



Ah, but why would you level up non-combat skills and then throw yourself into combat? A non-combat character has other beings fight in their stead, or they run/teleport. Thats simple logic. You don't create a non-combat character and expect it to be able to come out on top in a combat situation without training the relevant skills to do so first.



Not really unless you're playing an idiot for a character. A non-combat character, or at least one that focuses mostly on such skills, does not fight in direct combat, if at all. I once created a merchant type character that was entirely non-combat and focused on using mercenaries/companions to fight when I was attacked and I survived throughout that entire playthrough. (it was about 40 hours) If I tried to fight I'd obviously fail unless I prepared my skills beforehand.



You're right, you don't. But its pretty obvious that if you have literally no muscles at all you're probably not going to break down a door. And seeing as the strength attribute represents your actual strength (as opposed to a visual cue) capabilities having that attribute to look at gives you an accurate idea of how well you'll handle a particular situation that that attribute might take effect in.

Concerning Skyrim there isn't anything stated about the game handling what we're talking about in the Background, and Rather than giving us a Simple " the 8 attributes have been folded into 3 and you raise H/M/S directly after level up" he could have stated exactly what your talking about...but he didnt, he stated the former....and that rolls back to the statement, you don't say how hard hitting or how fast moving/high jumping/likable a character is with 3 stat bars, raising them or not.

It was never my point that the game force the math on the player; just that it does it (and makes it open to the player if they wish). I want to be able to choose, (and freely view) my PC's stats, and have them tangibly affect the game. I do not want the dialog to have choices like:

• Intelligence: "You fight the good fight?"

I just want those options to appear if my PC has the stats for them to appear.

In the game you could just attack the door (preferably with a dedicated 'Bash' option), and it either breaks or it doesn't (and maybe your PC breaks their shoulder doing it).

**Personally, however... I would want that information to print, but for that to be a HUD option.

:thumbsup:

And magically affected characters need not have a muscled appearance to reflect their true strength.

Open up Oblivion's CS and take a look at the Settings section. There's hundreds of values there that the player isn't even remotely aware of while playing. There's absolutely no reason to think that the same won't be true in Skyrim. It wouldn't be much of a game if that didn't happen. Obviously some aspect of Strength is in there somewhere or you won't be able to carry a single item in your inventory. Same with Speed, you couldn't move an inch if there wasn't some game mechanism that controlled it in some fashion.

Lately... You can carry anything, just not run with it.

...........are you..talking about Game mechanics that runs every game with a moving character....and comparing it with....Attributes..

The relationship with the DM and the Player are different then those between player and computer.

Your computer has all the variables. The dm, despite controlling the world your character plays in, does not have all the variables.

You have the character sheet, you have all the information that's on it, not the DM. He has all the environmental information.

Now granted if so requested the DM can take your character sheet and have all the variables. However, most DM's don't like to do that for several of reasons.

The main reason is that DM's don't like playing record keeper with character sheets. They already have enough on there plate controlling monsters, encounters, npcs, and the maps your playing on. So In order to play the game, there has to be some verbal communication between you and the DM.

With a computer game, the computer can handle all the variables while simultaneously playing music tracks from your favorite artist. And they can do it much faster then the human brain can. However verbal communication isn't there strongest suit. Indeed, if computers had minds of there own, they'd probably say that such data transference is inefficient (thank you Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex). So we use pictures and maybe some text to indicate what's happening. And there's the old saying that pictures are worth a thousand words.

As for classes, well I was going to go into this tangent about how classes work better for a game that realies on multiple players or a party then in a game that features a solo character such as those found in bethesda games. But I've got other things to do right now....

So let me close everything out with this and put this to bed at least for myself. Because I don't think I'm going to change anyone's minds or vice versa.

Here's the thing, this is the route that Bethesda is going with, they feel it will work. They've gone forward with it. I'd say its safe money that this mechanic is rooted deep into the program, that trying to change it now would mean having to start over.

Now you can scream, cry or play up a protest that would rival Hollywood's biggest hams. But at the end of the day this is the route that Bethesda has decided to take.

As a player, you have two choices, you can either give the new system a chance, or you can choose not to and play something else. That's really all you can do at this point.

I leave for an hour or two and the thread is at page 8?

Alot of hot topics.

And Gizmo I'm with, I should be able to discern the stats of my orc and altmer characters if I wish to. Not just leave everything and accept the computer to handle it, it allows for me to see more and work on what I wish with better knowledge.

No. I'm saying that we don't necessarily need to have a value for Speed located in a menu somewhere, the game is fully capable of dealing with it without our intervention.