No, when have I ever said the number of skills wasn't cut? I said there was only ONE SKILL that was cut, that was spears. medium armor wasn't cut from the game, it's still there. Enchanting was never cut from the game, it was still there. Short blades were never cut, they were still there. So only one skill was cut in truth and that's what people seem not take into account in the attribute discussion either. They don't realize that nothing was lost and no layer of complexity was taken from them. In Skyrim, complexity was only added just like Oblivion added player skill and many people were angry about that because they didn't want to do things, they wanted the game to do them for them so they say "Oblivion cut so many skills, it's dumbed down!" when it actually takes more skill to play than Morrowind did. This is the point, "removing" things doesn't make the game easier, never has yet.

Besides, if removing skills and attributes makes a game bad then Morrowind was the worst game of TES because it cut MANY skills and I mean really cut, not put it somewhere else in the game and it also removed perks. Attribute removal isn't bad, people just need to stop, take a deep breath and look at the big picture and realize that everything those attributes did are still in the game and now we have a whole new world of complexity (the new perk system)



Yeah, I mean languages.....really? They were the most useless skills and that was found out real quick by the devs and players. Swimming, no need for that to be a skill, just like athletics doesn't need to be a skill, it's kind've a given.

All this [censored]ing about Attributes cut, you know, at least they added a dynamic to Character development in the form of Perks. Oblivion just cut skills and skip-toed through the window.

Pretend this is an RPG, really :shakehead: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:

The stuff that they had to remove would not work in Skyrim. Mysticism was questionable but Athletics and Acrobatics weren't. They leveled up randomly and under this new system you could majorly exploit it to your advantage or level up skills that you don't want to level up.

The Attributes they just got in the way of the skills. They could've tweaked them but perks will do the same thing. Item weight is still a mystery that'll probably be answered in the next couple of months.

Strawman. I never said that "all characters are the same." I said (or pointed out, more accurately) that attributes serve to help define the character. You appear to agree.



Fair enough. I don't believe that I should be forced to simply imagine details about my character - for that I might as well imagine the entire adventure and not even bother with the game, but your second point has some merit.


Compared to what? Did you even read my post? Either explain precisely how perks alone "gives so much more customization" than perks AND attributes, or admit that you either didn't read my post or you're simply too intellectually dishonest to let go of your fallacious arguments.


I can't spend my days sorting through fallacies and empty rhetoric, particularly when I know in advance that doing so will accomplish nothing, since those amongst message board posters who favor such tactics are lacking the intellectual rigor and/or integrity necessary to care.


Diversionary rhetoric. Didn't answer the questions.




Bingo. And that's what those who are arguing for perks are really arguing for. And you're the first on this thread to admit it.


Which is another good reason why I tend to express my opinion and leave - because I want to express my opinion, but I know that even if I could manage to overcome the fallacies and rhetoric hurled by the predictable respondents, nothing is going to change anyway, so it's doubly a waste of time to pursue it. So, when inclined, I drop another variation on my opinion into the mix, then just let it go where it might. Beth will do what Beth will do.


I don't believe that it does "directly compensate for strength and intelligence." That's the fundamental flaw on which all of this has been built, best expressed by the poster last week who started the thread, "I made my character more intelligent because I wanted him to be more intelligent." The logic underlying all of this is that the ONLY reason that anyone ever invested anything into any attribute was in order to gain whatever they got out of their derived attributes. I don't believe that to be the case - from my own gameplaying experience I KNOW that not to be the case. Substituting the in-game statistical results of an attribute for the attribute itself can only be held to be a legitimate substitution if the ONLY thing anyone ever cared about was the statistical results. The recurrence of these threads, if nothing else, should prove that that's not the only thing that anyone ever cared about.

I think what we're going to see in future TES games is an ADDING of skills in. Skills are cut because they are superfluious, don't make sense, don't add much to the gameplay, or what have you. Eventually they're going to reach a point (Skyrim seems like that point) where there really ARE none of those skills that are like that. Instead, they can say "well, what could we ADD to make an interesting skill?"

Attributes? I don't care to see them gone, because its been discussed to death why they weren't important. What they DO is important, but the attributes themselves are not. That is what people are getting confused about. What attributes DID is STILL HERE, just part of skills and perks.

To be honest, I didn't criticize the removal at all.
I was more talking about the act of removal.
If they want to simplify it, why pvssyfoot about, and not just go all the way?

I agree if they get rid of 3 skills they should just get rid of everything /sarcasm

Perks also serve to help define the character. Nothing has been lost in regards to character distinction, merely changed.

Because they're not mentally handicapped?

They removed 8 attributes, 3 skills, and added 280 perks.

I think a lot of people forget that Attributes also kind of shackled the character development in a way. To properly balance, you had to have skills governed by attributes (I think it was 3 per in Oblivion) and also that has to factor into the 3 primary Arts (7 skills per art, created the "perfect" 21).

Adding one skill meant one attribute-Art would have been favored, so at the end, to keep it balanced, You would have needed something like 40+ skills.

Removing attributes, in a way, unshackles the game to that monotonous "Governing attribute" hooey.

Then let me ask you, did your character feel more intelligent as they learned new spells, as they uncovered more in the world, as their intelligence-affiliated skills increased, and as their pool of magic grew...
Or did they feel more intelligent when the intelligence attribute, namely the 1-100 scale representation of the summation of all the things above, jumped 1 to 5 points?

Is intelligence in the real world merely a percent-representation, or is it the in-detail particularly-applicable knowledge and ability that comes with having crafted an intellect?

I would argue that the attribute has no definition without what it pertains to, and that raising the attribute for the sake of being more intelligent is the same as increasing the derived stats for the sake of being more intelligent.

Because if they cut everything now, there will be nothing left to cut in the next games.

Here's what I understand based on the interviews and articles I've read, specifically the IGN one "five changes from Oblivion". http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1164075p1.html

in that IGN article it says anything associated with athletics would be under stamina, which leads me to believe that if you increase your stamina, you will run faster, gain more endurance and acrobatics, etc. If you raise your health, you get more strength, hit points, carrying capacity, etc. If you raise your magica you get more intelligence, luck, personality, etc.

So lets recap....

Raising health- gives more strength, carrying capacity, and hit points.

Raising magica- gives more intelligence, luck, and personality.

raising stamina- gives more endurance, athletics, and acrobatics.

Those are your attributes as I understand it, just folded into 3. That way, it separates the type of character you want into a category instead of raising each attribute individually. I guess it removes a very miniscule amount of control, but it doesn't seem like that big of a loss to me.

Perks would be associated with skills and skills alone as I understand it. I think there are separate perks however that automatically come with the individual attribute categories, but I don't know that for sure. With regard to the rest, I feel there is more than enough information from the interviews, articles, and videos to conclude my assessment of attributes is correct.

It seems like there is misunderstanding for some. I don't know who as I didn't read the whole thread, I just keep seeing this topic pop up with certain individual who seem to think you won't be able to run faster, become more intelligent, etc. without some perks associated with those types of attributes which I don't think is true. You just raise magica to become more intelligent, and stamina to run faster. Perks are just for skills. That's how I understand it.

Is upping the percentage indirectly through "Magicka" going to be any more "realistic"?

The point wasn't to show more realism, the point was to show that intelligence the attribute is equivalent to what intelligence the attribute pertains to, regardless of whether you increased intelligence to get stats or merely to roleplay.

Actually, intelligence is the poorest example of this, since in reality it's relatively fixed, cannot really be increase and actually tends to decline over time. But I'll run with the example anyway, in the spirit of the thing.

My character feels as intelligent as s/he is simply through the bald number attached to it. When I created Hale, for instance, I envisioned him as notably stupid, even by Nordic standards. So one of the first things I did with him was to go into the console and lower his intelligence to 10. That number serves in part to define who he is. And yes - that number has bearing on other things, but those things are all secondary. He's not dumb because he's a lousy spellcaster - he's a lousy spellcaster because he's dumb.

In point of fact though, intelligence in the real world actually is a "percent(ile) representation" and does not depend at all on knowledge or what it pertains to. It's merely a measure of the ability to take in and anolyze information, and doesn't depend on the nature of that information or any previous acquaintance with it.

But that's getting off-topic....

I pretty much agree with your post but I think you have some things wrong.
I'm pretty sure stamina will determine carrying capacity, personality will be handled by speechcraft, luck will sort of be replaced by perks in some way (because luck affected every skill, not just magic), and endurance doesn't make sense for stamina, considering its main effect was raising your health.

Oh, Attributes I've known you very well
I've seen you growing everyday
I never really looked before
but now you take My stats away.

Suddenly you're in My life
part of everything I do
you got me working day and night
just trying to keep a hold on you.

Here in your numbers I found My paradise
my only chance for happiness
and if I lose you now I think I would die.

Oh say you'll always be My baby
we can make it shine, we can take forever
just a minute at a time.

More than a number, more than a number to me
more than a number, more than a number to me
More than a number, oh oh

What did Intelligence do in Oblivion besides affecting how much magicka you had? As far as I know, nothing. Why exactly do you need an arbitrary number telling you how intelligent he is? Make a character and roleplay thinking, "my character will be dumb." Then whenever you choose level up bonuses, avoid magicka (because your character is not intelligent enough to gain these), and choose perks that don't seem like they will be indicative of an intelligent character. Same can be said for pretty much any other attribute except for luck.

Or the being-dumb and the being-a-lousy-spellcaster are synonymous, the latter being a particular representation of the former. Causation between the two (either way) isn't a given. So if you were to create that same stupid Nord in Skyrim, you could console-command the various things that intelligence IS to low numbers and have no readily-discernible difference whatsoever. Other than the already-begging-the-question fact that there would be no single numeric representation.


Exceptionally debatable. Using your 'ability to take in and anolyze information,' the ability can only be observed and measured in the particulars through which the ability manifests itself in. Without the particulars, there are no means to reach a percent-scale measurement.

Uhm... no it isn't. If you're going to say that IQ = Intelligence, it doesn't, IQ is merely an indicator at how adept someone is at solving logic based puzzles. Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving.

Well the only thing that you should have to imagine is intelligence as it really isn't a tangible concept that you can see. You can see someone be agile and you can see someone who is strong. Mainly the problem with attributes is that everyone would basically fill out the same stats to not fall behind in the game. Two swordsman are always going to have willpower, strength, endurance and speed maxed out. There is just no difference there. However, one swordsmen may decide he is agile and be dodging attacks, so he doesn't need as much health so he chooses to build up stamina instead of health when he levels while the tough swordsmen decides he is going to raise health. Beyond that, then you have other things in perks like the agile swordsmen may pick perks that boost his survivability while the tough swordsmen might pick perks that make him do massive damage so he can burst things down. There is just so much customization with the new system and no, the old attributes aren't compatible.

Mainly, look at it like this. Imagine we write on a chalk board, Old attributes and what it's effects are and then go to the other side of the chalk board and then on the other side we write down New system and what it's effects are. This new system has all the effects that the old attribute system did, so erase the effects under the 8 attributes. Then we right 280 perks to choose from and only being able to choose about 50 per character. Now what does the old attributes have left under them? Nothing. The only way to keep them is to make up some system and then you would need a reason for that system. Why make a new system just to keep in those 8 words? That's the main thing here, the only argument for keeping the old attributes is because they were originally in the game but the problem is they have absolutely no ability now because the new system has their effects and you can't have the old attributes keep the same effects because then your doubling up on it. See what I mean? The eight attributes come down to being just eight words in the new game and words aren't a game mechanic.

Yeah I'm not sure, but I was pretty much guessing on some of that stuff just based on the information we have been given. So in that sense, It seemed to me that all the attributes are mostly still there, just folded into the 3 and that skills and attributes would be separate things. The reason I made that post was because I keep seeing people suggest that you'll raise things like speed or intelligence with perks which seemed incorrect. Right? So I thought I'd give a fairly basic and logical (as far as I can tell) summation as to what it's more likely to be.

EDIT: Reading through more of the posts, it still seems like people think you raise speed with perks. That just seems incorrect to me.

These attribute threads are worse than the spear threads.

Can't you use a search funtion? Or must every member voice their complaint by making a topic so they can get attention? This complaining has been done before, let's move on.

Christ.

You'll probably nag at me for not contributing, so I'll add in 1 thing; Attributes are IN. They still govern gameplay. Perks actually add even MORE customization and specilaization, and Todd is trying to get this through some people, but they just can't seem to understand. Todd, who DEVELOPS the game and knows what he's talking about. If someone who's been working on TES since 1994 thinks some aspect of the game is redundant, then it's more than likely redundant. When we are talking about game mechanics, it all comes down to Developer > Fan. Not to say fans can't contribute, but when someone knows more about video games then you, listen to him; He's not being all HERP DERP.

Hmm, I think I said more than I want to. Oh well. *Flamers inc*