These were exactly my thoughts as well, I've spent more time grinding my oblivion characters than actually playing because if I just play, I end up being substantially weaker than every one else.

With the new way it works in Skyrim I'll be just playing without having to get 3 different skills up 10 levels every level.

Canadians aren't any better than Americans when it comes to cuisine, that's for sure. We eat pretty much the same things they do. I grew up in a Dutch family though, so I at least got an inkling of what quality food was like. Growing up I was sometimes appalled at some of the crap my friends considered good food. They are getting better, but it's taken a long time. And it's only because of the various ethnic cuisine they've become exposed to that their taste buds have become more educated. They certainly didn't get there on their own.

This pretty much involves thinking outside the Oblivion. But it has been discussed many times in different ways in other threads, so I give the keyboard a rest. But I do have an weak anology because I feel anologous. :hubbahubba:

The game of basketball has been around for some time. As players have gotten better and the system proved vulnerable to exploits, some things have changed to fix it. Too many 3 pointers being made; move the line back some. Too easy to not execute offensive strategy because of ball hogging; institute a shot clock. But its still the game of basketball where you need to manipulate the ball by dribbling and shooting up in a hoop. Once you stop dribbling and lower the hoop, its not basketball anymore. Its another game. It could be a good game that I would play. I just wouldn't call it basketball.

Are you saying that SR isn't TES?

TES has to change, grow and try new things. The alternative is stagnation.

Your point is that cucumber sandwiches make for good food? I feel sorry for you, because if you think they could ever beat a decent philly, then you've only had bad ones. Eating crappy versions of good food doesn't make you an expert on food that you ignorantly look down upon.

Your anology makes no sense. The basic premise behind these games is that you advance by doing, not by selecting points when you level up, like Fallout or D&D. That hasn't changed, they've just eliminated an unnecessary step towards your character's progression. The end result in your character's development will still be exactly the same as before. Attributes make sense in a game like Fallout where an increase has an effect on your skills. But since these games work the opposite way, they don't serve much of a purpose, except to control a very minor aspect of your character. And since the effect they have on those aspects can so easily be compensated for in other ways, there's not really much point in having them around.

It's unimportant if it's called TES or an RPG. That's a pointless debate over terminology.



This misrepresents the debate. No one is suggesting that Bethesda shouldn't try new things. The pro-attribute crowd are saying that attributes, despite some flaws in the way they were used, were a good feature of TES and should have been kept (although fixed). They are advocating improvement, and it would be odd to call that stagnation. (You might argue that Skyrim will improve upon character customisation in a different way, by cutting attributes entirely, but that is a different matter).

I respect your opinion. Have a good night.

No, my point is that philly cheesesteak with french fries and a Pepsi is crap food. They provide a very good foundation for diabetes and obesity. Cucumber sandwiches are healthy at least. Boring, but healthy.

Ah, a health nut.

You can have a healthy cheese steak, fries and pepsi. Dutch food is so healthy? Its a bunch of sausages, cold cuts and cheeses. Plus, as long as your active, you can pretty much eat anything you want, minus lots of sugar and cholesterol.

On topic: Its basically a group that didnt like attributes and instead of improving them they just want to cut them, then there's a group that sees the glass half full, they see ways to improve and enhance attributes. Not to mention there was nothing wrong with attributes in the first place, it was the level scaling and overall level system.

And I'm sure that when they started working on the game, the devs felt that way as well. But as they tried to come up with ideas on how to make them actually be effective and balanced, they decided that it was more trouble than it was worth.

Well no it isn't, but all those things are at least made with quality in mind. I won't even eat that processed crap that North Americans pass off as cheese. And their sausages and cold cuts are no better.



Well that's certainly not true. Haven't you ever heard of cholesterol?

Willpower didn't increase the actual magicka just the speed at which magicka regenerated.

Agreed. I guess my own feelings on the matter is that I could easily go either way at this point. On the one hand, I'm sympathetic to the "hide the numbers" view, but on the other I'm also sympathetic to the "let us customise our characters along lots of independent dimensions".

These are not yet opposing views, of course, which is why I'm very suspicious about this debate. My tentative diagnosis is that what is really driving this debate is simply optimism vs. pessimism (or as some might put it, really devoted fan-ism vs. healthy scepticism). On the one hand, there are people confident that Bethesda will give them scope for interesting and deep character customisation without attributes, whereas others are sceptical that Bethesda will pull it off without attributes. I know that a lot of people will disagree with my putting the debate in those terms, but I can't shake the feeling that this is really what is going on.

I like shawarmas myself. Best of both worlds :thumbsup:


Yeah that's what intelligence did.

You generalize, I generalize. Not to mention America has all of the Dutch foods anyway, we have everything, we're the melting pot. You apparently dont know much about American cuisine And sausages and cheese are the two biggest Dutch foods. Ive been all over the Netherlands, I know.


uh yeah, and you intentionally edited that out of my quote. Resorting to misquoting now eh?

On topic: I think we may be able to mod back in attributes.

I can certainly conceive of a good cheese & steak sandwich with fries on the side. I'm certainly a big fan of burgers and steak sandwiches. I guess I just experienced some aesthetic revulsion when seeing the pics on Google images. They were packed full of overcooked meat, plastic looking cheese, and stuffed into a sugary bun. Didn't look appetising at all. But with a good steak cooked rare, melted gruyere, in a fresh baguette, that would be really tasty. :thumbsup:

They probably thought shuffling through 18 talent trees (which basically ended up doing the same as attributes) and selecting attributes during level up was a bit much.....so they just replaced attributes with the Perks and Stats.

Imports don't count. And as I mentioned, North American palates have gotten better over the years. So there's still hope yet.



Maybe, it depends on how thoroughly they've removed them. Personally I like the idea of a more organic play style. Even in Oblivion, though I use a mod that eliminates all that +5 nonsense, I find myself stopping the game in order to look over my stats. It would be time better spent if I were to just play the game and not have to worry about it at all.

That's an opinion, not a fact. Selective quoting again eh?


On topic: attributes checks in dialogue would have been enough justification to keep them. They werent complex, or spread sheety anyway.

The way skills, perks, and the 3 main "attributes" (health, magicka, stamina), all work together... could be that improvement they're advocating for. We don't know how well (or not) it will work until we actually get to play the game, but Todd has stated a couple times now that everything attributes did, are still doable. Unless you want to call him a liar, I'll take his word for it until I have reason to believe otherwise. Maybe you'll need to put a little more work into it (having to actually use all skills to level them a bit, instead of going for Luck each level up), but I don't see anything that can't continue to work. When you move what the attributes did into skills and perks, then what they did can be improved by adding in more relavent perks.

As I said, it will depend on how well Bethesda pulls it off, but a lot of people I see complaining that they "removed attributes" seemed to be too focused on the word "attributes" and/or associated numbers, than their actual in-game function, which is potentially enhanced.

I've been around for 54 years, it's more than just opinion.



They had those in Fallout 3 and for the most part they served absolutely no purpose. It was just another line of dialogue that had no effect at all on the game. And there's no reason why they can't do that based off your skills themselves. You'd probably end up with a much more varied dialogue that way in fact.

No. Its an opinion.

No, they did have a purpose/effect and had even bigger effects in NV.

We'll see how it plays out. I like to play a swordsman/thief. Unarmored. He survives on speed and aglity in combat, stealth when not in combat, and flight when he is outmatched. Can I make that character in Skyrim? In every other TES game I could.

If attributes are gone then how does one make a character that is strong, fast, or agile? How does one make a unique character at the start? Will every character start as the same dull, blank slate to be filled in later?

At the moment we have no idea. Maybe perks fill in the gap and maybe they don't. Maybe attributes are consumed in other aspects of the game such that they are there but just not as up front. Or maybe the thing is dumbed down enough for a 10 year old. We will find out more as the game approaches release.