This is my third topic on removed things from Skyrim, trying to understand the decision behind it and offering my own vision.
The first was about classes and second about athletics and acrobatics..

Todd Howard said they removed attributes because they wanted to make the end effect more obvious: you want magicka, here is magicka, you don't need intellect.
My first reaction was what about willpower? And personality? And luck?
The community is ok with this on most part because the dreaded +5 hunt is now officially over..

So without much delay here is my vision on how to keep (or reintroduce attributes)..
First the scale of attributes would go down to 10 instead of 100 (like fallout). This is an optional step but it feels more natural when I present the rest of the idea.

For the rest I will take a look at the Imperial race to help me out.
The imperial would start with
3 agility (marksman, sneak, security)
4 endurance (block, smithing)
4 intelligence (conjuration, alchemy, enchanting)
5 personality (illusion, speech, mercantile)
4 speed (martial arts, fitness*)
4 strength (1h, 2h)
3 willpower (alteration, destruction, restoration)
5 luck

*fitness includes armor and athletics

There would be no screen on the level up.
The increase in the attribute would be caused by the increase in the governed skill in a way:
- first skill at 25, 50, 75, 100 (+4 max)
- second skill at 50, 75, 100 (+3, total +7 max*)
- third skill at 75, 100 (+2, total +9 max**)
The starting boost to skills would also increase the attribute.

* ritght at the limit since no race starts with lower than 3
** way over the limit

Example 1)
- by leveling 1h to 100 the player would get +4 strength (at 25, 50, 75 and 100) for a total of 8
- to level strength beyond that the player would need to level 2h to 75 (because the second skill would not grant a +1 at 25)

Example 2)
- by leveling marksman to 75 the player would get +3 agility (total 6)
- he could then level sneak to 50 for another +1 agility (total 7)
- leveling security to 50 would do him no good (third skill)
- the player raises marksman to 100 (+1) and sneak to 75 (+1) for a total of 9
- to get to 10 he needs to either raise sneak all the way to 100 or secutity to 75

And luck?
Well luck would be increased by reaching 100 in a skill probably (since everybody starts with 5 luck, that would mean 5 skills at 100 to get 10 luck)


What would all of this accomplish?
Well the game would be richer with attributes in it, but without the spreadsheet of calculating how to get the +5 every level..
The player would level his skills and get automatic increases to his attributes in a natural way..

A blade at 100 and strength at 8 is a good place to be.

Sounds like you have an idea for a mod to make.

But here's the thing I've come to think about attributes. They're way too generalized. What is intelligence? It's a very abstract concept; it's a lot more than a simple number that somehow describes how smart your character is. One common theory about intelligence that is studied in psychology is gardner's multiple intelligences, where someone's intelligence is ranked in 9 different areas - linguistic, logical, naturalistic, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intraqersonal, and existential. Even this I feel is a simplified view. Why can't you judge your character's intelligence by looking at the levels of their skills that logically require some amount of intelligence (all 5 magical schools, enchanting, alchemy, smithing, speechcraft, mercantile), plus the choices they make in dialogue and quests? Why do you need a single number to tell you how "intelligent" your character is? And if my orc has 30 intelligence while your high elf has 100 intelligence, why do we have the same dialogue options, ability to read the same books, and the same puzzle solving ability?

WIllpower is an even harder concept to sum up with a single number. Even strength is difficult - someone can have good upper body strength, lower body strength, core strength, etc. Personality? How can that be a number? There are so many different personality types, and I don't think there is one single personality type that everyone somehow likes better than every other personality type. This is better handled by dialogue choices that you can pick, shaping your character's personality by how they actually act. Speed can be measured by both attack speed and running speed, and there's no reason someone who can run fast would automatically be a fast sword fighter.

So what I'm getting at is it's better (IMO) to just sum up a character by their actual ability to do specific activities (skills), and leave the generalizations up to true role play. A strong character might prefer to use heavy armor and big, slow two handed weapons (honestly a well made sword should be able to cut flesh with minimal force; someone's ability to do damage with a heavy two handed boulder-on-a-stick warhammer is more indicative of their strength than their ability to hurt people with a shortsword imo), or they might just go with their bare fists, and they would probably be able to take a lot of damage before dying. A quick, agile character might prefer dual weapons and lighter armor that doesn't inhibit their movement, and they would probably have a lot of stamina for sprinting.

I don't see how the game would be "richer" with attributes in it. It would just have dumbed down (yes, I said it) numbers that supposedly describe your character's general traits. The game would be richer with more dialogue options, more quest choices, and just more stuff to do.

You increase 1H to do more 1H damage, which has the side-effect of increasing your strength which itself increases damage for 1H. Why not just make 1H do more damage directly then, instead of having to go through an arbitrary attribute value? The added damage to 2H would be relatively minor and not all that useful, especially when you're high level and haven't been using it to get its high-level perks (and if you have been using it, then it will be getting better anyway). Even if it was useful, what's wrong with simply taking an appropriate amount of 1H into account when calculating 2H damage (and vice versa)?

The same goes for any other attribute. Things like gains for derived attributes can be done directly now. Special side-effects can be handled via perks. There's no reason to have attributes if all they're good for is a slight improvement to the skills that you're already improving.

Thank you, deathcoffee. That's what I've been trying to get across for almost a month now. RPG players are just so set in their ways that it seems they can't comprehend an RPG without attributes, which, I think, is a close-minded way of thinking about the most open-ended genre of them all.
But, to be honest, most attributes were... Kinda goofy. It was a silly little number game to have to play. I'm glad they revamped it into something more useful, even if it IS slightly reminiscent of Super Mario RPG.

As long as they don't go the SMRPG route of having the ridiculous different bonuses to different stats depending on the level, requiring you to choose them in a specific order to get the maximum benefit, I'm fine with it

Yeah, that game had some issues. But after ten years, I still regularly get the Mushroom Kingdom theme stuck in my head!

...Which is more of a negative than a positive at this point.

That's a nice summation of the problems with attributes. They are massively abstract concepts, generalisations which on the whole are indeed the result of training and practice of specific skills. Its a holdover from early P&P RPG design and has stuck as a fundamental requirement up until the last decade when some game designers began to reconsider what they actually stood for.