That can be accomplished just as easily with a racial perk or racial skill modifier.

Big misunderstanding in this thread:

Nobody is advocating for removing the complexity of the game. I'm all for racial differences, carrying capacity, jump, dodge, holding breath, and anything that an attribute can do.
I love all of the things that attributes can do.

All I'm saying is that you don't actually need attributes to do them. Everything that the pro-attribute camp is asking for can be done in some other way. Because of that, there's no real need to have two separate "layers" of all these abilities.

I don't know what it is, but it seems lately when I hear the word perk, I think of Pavlov's experiment. Ding Ding, here is your reward for following the bells. *Pat on the head*

Anyway, I have mentioned that initial racial perks (ones that come standard and no other races could acquire them) would placate most of *my* concerns. However, it still does not allow for character customization beyond the standard core physical level when you have no armor/weapons. The cap and incremental raise of attributes could solve a lot of old and current issues.

See I start to feel your pain, but I think you can address all these things. As far as transferring skill from sword to mace, "physical prowess" isn't really the right way to do it. A general combat skill would do the trick, and hand to hand is the perfect proxy. If you do that, of course, "hand to hand" starts to look exactly like an attribute.

But I think that perks can also do it, and racial perks are a perfect example. I agree that some racial differences are needed, and default racial perks are probably the best way to do it. If you increase your sword skills and get a perk that has +50% melee damage that effects swords, maces, and hand-to-hand, that would effectively be exactly what you are asking for.

I like the perk idea, though.

So why would attributes add more variety than perks? What the difference between 99 and 100 strength? Next to nothing.
The only thing that mattered was which attribute was higher than the others, which were the ones you were focusing on.

There's going to be a cap of obtainable perks for more diverse characters. They will be the same at the beginning, you just have to roll with it.

A hand to hand skill may cause me to raise my level, and that is not something I am looking at doing if I am a sword type. But if I lose the sword temporarily, it would be nice if my strength caused some multiplier of damage with whatever I picked up. That is why an attribute raise in strength can cover multipliers in melee damage/encomberance without causing a level raise. This is just one attribute, there are more cases for others..

But the previous perk idea is a 60/40 solution. I am pleased we can talk with civility and agree to disagree.

I've said my peace about this on other threads, but I'll say it again...sorry this is going to be long winded.

Ok my two sense folks. This whole, "well attributes make you think, or do hard work" attitude, sorry, not buying it.

If your setting there with your hand on the casting button casting the same spell over and over again just to raise an arbitrary stat, your not really thinking a whole bunch, you are literally doing nothing else but standing there clicking the same button over and over again. Your doing repetitive mind numbing busy work.

"Well that's a part of work" some might say. F that. In the real world such work either has some kind of tangible reward to it, or it needs to be done out of necessity or both. In the real world you do such work for money, for knowledge, for the good of the community or someone you care about, to create something and show it to the rest of the world, or because your roof is leaking.

Video Games provide none of those things. You do them purely for recreational purposes. Why would I take the money I made hypothetically loading and unloading trucks at a warehouse and spend it on a game that makes me virtually do the same thing?

The attribute system is flawed, it has been a flawed system sense Morrowind. The difference in Morrowind is that there you could train someone to bring up skills you weren't using to increase you stats. As long as you got the gold to pay for the training, everything was good, in Oblivion you could only do that 5 times a level, the game literally forces you to use skills you weren't planning on using.

The underlying problem is that you become more focused on the stats then skills. You not thinking, "what do I want my character to be really good at?" Your thinking, "my character needs more hitpoints so I'm going to raise some minor skills so I can get that X5 to my Endurance stat"

Think of it this way, you plan for your character to become an expert swordsman, do you want him to get better with a sword, or do you want to lug a axe around just so you can get that X5 strength multiplier when you level up?

It's frustrating seeing the same old 'no more +5 Attribute grinding' argument over and over again. It's like you guys post without even reading the thread or thinking about the subject. How would attribute grinding even be possible given that classes and Major/Minor skills have been removed?

I do not advocate one over the other, but submit that both would greatly enhance the variety. If 1 attribute was raised every 5 levels, there would not be numbers in the 99-100 range. The attribute number would be more personal as no one attribute could be raised more than 10 times if one chose to raise the same attribute until he/she reached level 50.

An explanation of the multiplier:
If the average strength for all races was 35, that would mean no melee/encumbrance multiplier if you had 35 strength. However if you had a platinum sword and 40 skill rating in sword that caused that total damage to be 100 for example, a 36 in strength would mean that you would get a 1% bonus to that melee combination, so 101 damage. Someone with 34 strength damage would be 99. So those 1% s are significant with multiple hits.

Other attributes would act similarly except for luck/personality which probably should not be included. Every point above average intelligence, 1% bonus to general magic attack. Every point above average willpower, 1% bonus to general magic defense. Every point above average to endurance, 1% bonus to melee defense. Every point above average to speed, 1% bonus to walk/run speed. Every point above average to agility, 1% bonos to projectile damage. I realize that this is probably not going to happen, maybe I enjoy hearing myself type.

So far the only attribute you've come close to making a case for has been Strength. What would be the point in keeping all the other attributes if only one or two of them actually add something to the game that can't be done in some other way? Intelligence for example. All it does is adjust your Magicka pool. Well now we can do that directly each time we level up. Willpower is another pointless one. Making your Magicka regenerate faster is a very marginal effect and can easily be handled some other way. Agility effects can easily be handled directly by skills alone, there's no need to have that in the game either. And you've already mentioned Personality and Luck. Even Endurance becomes superfluous if we can manipulate our Health directly. So what would be the point in only retaining a couple of the attributes that might actually do something? And we still don't know fully what Stamina will do in the game. Maybe those extra damage effects you're so fond of will be included in there instead.

Seven pages is a lot to read, it's getting close to dinner and I'm hungry, so sorry....

As to your question. Every skill still governs an attribute, how big that multiplier is depends on what skill you used during that character level. Major and minor skills are only relevant in terms of being able to control those multipliers. Minor skills have no impact on leveling but do have an impact on the attribute multipliers. By raising minor skills you you can control those multipliers. That might sound like cheating, but in a game like oblivion, getting a X5 endurance multiplier is crucial as opposed to getting a X2, especially when the hitpoint bonus for Endurance is not retroactive.

If you remove the major and minor aspect of the game and make it so every skill has the potential to count towards leveling up your character, you can no longer control those multipliers. What if you need to raise a stat rather quickly early on? As in the case of endurance, because again bonus hitpoints are not retroactive. Best solution is to remove the multiplier aspect of the game entirely so the player no longer has to worry about it and just concentrate on raising skills and getting perks to make you better at your chosen skills.

When you get down to it, most stats in a game like this focus on increasing either how much you can carry, how damage you can do, how often you hit, how many hitpoints you have, and how many spell points you have. Damage and accuracy can be dealt with through the use of skills. And you can easily govern hit points and spell points just by determining which of those you want to increase directly instead of worrying about some connecting stat.

About the only one I can think of that's not really tied to those things is how much you can carry, not sure how they there going to address that, maybe they'll tie into the fatigue stat.

Apologies, you must have responded before I could give examples of other attributes. Endurance may be better suited to effect your melee defense, not health. BTW, I don't think the stamina bar would be too intuitive concerning damage effects.

Actually, I simply missed those. But you still haven't addressed Agility and Endurance, plus you advocate removing Personality and Luck. That still only leaves a gutted form of attributes which can be easily removed.



Stamina most definitely has a correlation to encumbrance, there's no need to use Endurance for that at all. In fact Stamina and Endurance pretty much represent the very same things.



You're probably right, but we don't really know what they have in mind for that stat.

You'd have to try the food in New Orleans before saying that.. Its arguably the best in the country; but I'd say beyond that... I've had "ham"burgers in Dover, and Raw ground Chuck with a raw egg on top in Paris. :yuck:

:biggrin:

---

As for Stats...
They are of paramount importance to any RPG player that seeks to play within the character's limitations ~They are those limitations (and strengths). The idea of "Playing how you feel" and raising what you use is counter to what these traditionalist players are looking for in an RPG (myself included). I won't take an RPG seriously if it doesn't have decent Stats that widely affect the game.

Well that's certainly not true. Haven't you ever heard of cholesterol?
[/quote]
Didn't he say MINUS THE CHOLESTEROL????
:shakehead:

Not when I replied. I was wondering what he was babbling about in his response to me. Obviously he edited that one in afterwards.

I think it is clear that we can all agree on a few things.

First, we all know that attribute systems needed an overhaul. They have to be changed, fixed, replaced, whatever you wanted to call it. Something has to be done about them.

Second, everybody admits that attributes don't need to exist just for the sake of being attributes. Everyone that advocates for attributes is actually defending the things that attributes can do. Namely, they can create some semblance of variety from race to race, or control important things like encumbrance or the crossover power from swords to maces. So attributes are useful, but only so far as they actually do something useful.

So then, it's clear that if we can come up with a system that accomplishes everything that attributes need to accomplish, does it in a manner that makes sense, and can fix some of the "gamey" things about Oblivion attributes like the +5 rush, then it's a good system.

Bethesda's current system might actually be that. We will have to wait and see to actually pass judgment, but the system they are proposing has at least the potential to make everyone happy here.

You make a fair point about Endurance and the way bonus hitpoints are not added retrospectively. That was a baffling piece of game design on the part of Bethesda but again something that could easily be fixed.

My point is that the attribute system was not beyond saving. Infact, most of the fixes were pretty obvious and not hard to carry out. Now, whether attributes were actually worth saving is a more difficult question and, I think, mostly a matter of opinion.

Obviously not or Bethesda would have fixed the system. They did after all have attributes in the game early on, but decided to scrap them instead.

If you had bothered to read the second part of the paragraph you quoted you would already have an alternative explanation.

Oh I did read it. But I'm still left with the conclusion that Bethesda tried to create a viable attribute system at first but decided that it just wasn't worth all that trouble.

Definitely need luck, personality could go, but it was different than speechcraft. Speechcraft was for those actually gifted in gab. Personality meant that people just had a natural high disposition towards you. Luck should stay, speechcraft should go.

Couldn't have said it better. I have no doubt that there will be some kinks in the system, there always is. I can say with confidence that with over 200 some perks the game is going to have quite a few that will be of little use. But I'm confident in Bethesda's ability to come up with something that will work. There will be flaws but it will work.

I'm glad that they are taking away attributes. They're just useless skills. :toughninja:

Well, that's completely different from "Obviously they couldn't fix it or they would have" and much closer to what I said in the first place. Next thing I know you'll be agreeing with me that attributes are great :tongue: