Lets compare this to Morrowind, a game where you could max out every skill without having to leave the starting area. Not to mention, the stats meant nothing since you could max all of them without having to pick and choose a focus. Where is the complexity in Morrowind? Explain it to me because for me it was one of the easiest games to complete of all time.




As far as Skyrim goes, strength is a measure of your skill, your hit points, your weapons, your perks, and your stamina and itemization. Seems like you have much to pick and choose from here. In Morrowind you could have unlimited strength and stamina and hit points all on the same character without having to sacrifice anything, seems pretty simple to me.




You're insane, without numbers you cannot have character definition???? How many movies have you watched where the characters had numbers attached to them????

You're way out in left field right now.

Yep. And I understand that for the time being it is a cage I just have to live with, but I would prefer it if the the cage reminds me as little as possible it is a cage. Skyrim is a step in the right direction.

Heh, that probably sounds to harsh. As I have said I have done plenty of RPGing - electronic and PnP, encountered plenty of systems of varying "complexity" and I never complain if a game designer manages to hide the mechanics as long as they work. I loved Morrowind, but the attributes never inspired me. They weren't bad enough they affected my RPing fun. I don't miss them however as they never felt like an efficient way of - in your words - contributing to the rich and meaningful character development and progression. They were functional enough, but better could be done.

At least they are doing something different. If I ever want to see a game where the way I play my character and the actions they take truly defines them options will have to be explored.

Sticking with one type of system for traditions sake isn't a good way of making progress.



Funny, lots of PnP games and electronic games studios are doing exactly that (for the love), but alas they don't meet your high standards so they are obviously dumbing down for majority of dullards out there...

Truly I didn't mean to suggest a game studio wouldn't want to make a good RPG, but rather I don't know why they would want to make one for you since your attitude is, well...

What the hell do movies have to do with video games...? :confused:

This is all going way over your head.

Despite how overused that freakin phrase is, it still makes me laugh when somebody applies it to a situation.

Ok, how do numbers define your character in real life? Give me your stats right now so that I can write them down.

If I had a new car, I would give it to you as a prize for answering the question right......but I took an arrow in the knee.

Only if you cheated or exploited the system by grinding... which is the player's fault, not the system's. Progression was fine if you just played the game naturally and let your character progress over time.


See a few posts back for an example of why attributes / skills should be separate.


Again, unless you exploit the game, it should take a very long time for that kind of thing to happen.

I could just as easily exploit Skyrim to make a super-powerful character who's good at most things. :shrug:

For stats to be taken seriously they would need to include a billion of them. Because each personality and physical characteristic are different from person to person in about a billion different ways.

You want more complexity, but you can't have it both ways. If you want true realism you can only get it from playing a simulator. No matter how many numbers or stats they can try and use to define a character in a virtual world it will still be no more complex than our own world. Which begs the question, whats the point? Do we play games to have fun or do we play them to live out our own pathetic lives in a virtual enviornment? 4th down and 3, you make the call.

Cathalo this conversation is pretty much Whooshing over your head.

if you have a Char IN A GAME that does not have variables to alter how that char functions in the world/how it interacts with the world and think that " Imagination"™ is somehow going to change the game, then you're operating on some other insignificant aspect. and thats whats being detailed now H/M/S is exactly the same as it has been seen Arena, three bars, that if depleted = bad for the character, they do not determine speed, strenght, agility or persona they are just bars, and tick boxes aren't helping the case either.

But elt me entertain you're attempt at disclaiming Numbers.

Skills = Numbers

H/M/S = numbers

Perks = numbers in percents AND skill requirements

weapon damage = numbers

Armor rating = numbers

so...what say you.

Billions? In case of personality, we got it down to 5 for you (or 30 if you include the facets)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Factor_Model

No, progression was not fine in Morrowind. I maxed my unarmored, destruction, hand to hand and alteration without ever having to leave the starting areas and by the time I did I was able to steamroll everything that got in my way. Easiest game I have ever played. Skills leveled far too quickly in Morrowind and if you used trainers it was basically the equivalent of breaking your game. They fixed this in Oblivion to a certain degree but it was still way too easy to exploit the game, you could run backwards firing arrows and spells at enemies in Oblivion without every getting touched in combat.




You can't master everything in Skyrim, you're limited on perks.

:facepalm:

My god... this really is going over your head. I'm starting to wonder if you're trolling now. But i'll humour you:

In real life, i'm a living organism. My body determines who I am and what i'm capable of. Video games aren't that sophisticated. To simulate life, they use numbers. A character in a video game cannot have a memory... they cannot think for themselves. If I speak to an NPC and they remember me later on, that's all just an illusion. The game uses numbers to recognise and remember that i've interacted with a certain NPC for the first time, and this in turn generates a different response when I interact with them in future. Similarly, my body determines what I can and cannot lift in real life, or how fast I can run. In a video game, such things are determined by numbers.

Sounds to me like you were grinding / exploiting the game... which is your own stupid fault.



80 perk points is still enough to max out ever skill tree i'm interested in, plus a couple i'm not interested in. In fact, I only needed about 40 perk points on my first playthrough to end up with a powerful character maxed out in every skill / tree I was interested in.

And that's when playing the game naturally instead of exploiting. If I wanted to exploit the game, I could just open up the console and unlock every single perk. :shrug: I don't consider that any worse than exploiting Morrowind / Oblivion's system by jumping on the spot constantly or whatever.

Yeah Tommy6860 - skip to the end for what I realized. But I had typed the rest so I wasn't wasting it.



Funny, looking back over my posts - just to make sure I haven't forgotten them and come up with better ones - I haven't seen myself saying "This is what RPGs are!", "This is what they have to have", "If you don't like them this way then you are not a true RPGer" "Modern RPGs are made so downs syndrome people and retards can play them", "Dumbed down for consoles" "There are two types who play - role players who like stats and muderhobos that don't".

But you are absolutely right. You are. I have said what I don't like. I have said why I don't like it, and for that reason why I like this change.

And that this change does not in some way make people idiots or FPS fanatics or whatever because nothing inherent in RPGs says number column attributes are necessary. They are what are convenient and have been used because they are a known quantity. Not because they are the be all to end all.

I have also said I have played plenty of games with "simpler" and more "complex" rules then TES, but I personally like it when they are behind the scenes because I don't find numbers necessarily or inherently beneficial to creating "rich and meaningful character development and progression". But lord knows my statements of opinion are on the same level as the RPG police out to keep RPGs safe from people to stupid to truly appreciate RPGS must have stats.



Which isn't my experience with playing the game. I have found Skyrim much easier to create and stay true to character type then I did in Morrowind. I haven't tried to create a min/max character or a magewarriorthief, so maybe you are right. However I do know I didn't try to create those characters in the previous games but I often ended up with them.

And Morrowind has been out for a decade. Oblivion fairly long as well. I think there is adequate proof you can min/max by now just fine.

And your highlighting doesn't make sense - so you are saying Skyrim allows people to play it how they want? But thank you for telling me earlier to start with myself and then telling me to replay TES because obviously I haven't played them deeply enough. :tops:

And thanks for missing the point. The one where I pasted in somebody elses text to highlight where somebody is going "There are two types of TES player - the ones that play like this and the ones that play like this", in order to create false evidence for their argument. Myself and others chip in to say we don't fit either of those categories, therefore invalidating that categorization.

I'll say it again - I am a long term RPGer who wants rich and meaningful character development and progression with my questing. I personally don't think need be stats integral to that. Ergo I am definitely not group A, but I can't be Group B either because apparently group B think stats are a must.



You are not reading what I am saying, sorry.

The pro-Attributes lobby as I will call them, are really selling the importance of traditional stats/attributes as being integral to RPGs and any person who says they love stats must be all for the character (and if they don't love states or stats aren't present then they aren't real RPG). I am talking RPGs as a genre as well here, pointing out the murderhobos the poster wants to separate the pro-Attributes from (by making the muderhobos sound especially casual and not deep) can be just as passionate about stats.

And I don't know if you have played Morrowind enough, I think you should experience playing the previous games in depth, because it is possible to min/max. It is possible to unintentionally end up with magewarriorthieves.



I am starting to loose you here. Have you actually read this thread? The "RPGs must have stats?" That block of text I posted that says "there are two types of TES player?" And my role in the conversation where I give my opinion on stats which is essentially - I don't think RPGs necessarily need them and here is proof in one person thatyou can be as much in love with TES as an Pro-Attributes without needing to be Pro-Attributes. That I can be super dedicated to the cause of rich and meaningful character development and progression but not think attributes are the be all to end all of that.

And that the people who saying "You are either Pro-Attribute or you are one of the majority of dullards the game was dumbed down for who can't possibly care about RPing"? I don't know if you have read this thread enough, I think you should experience reading the previous posts in depth.



Care to provide an equal or greater number of posts to others where I am categorizing the TES fanbase, gamers in general or RPG games or players that? And I don't remember telling anyone what RPG games are to them. I remember reading a lot of posts saying this. I remember typing a lot about my less then enthusiastic stance on attributes based on my RPGing.




Ooops. I feel silly now. Very silly after typing all this. That block of text in quotes - not mine. I took it from someone elses post to empathize my point about how I dislike people trying to categorize games in such a way. Specifically "you play this way and don't like stats or you play this way and do like stats". I can say "I play this way and would happily live without your in the face stats, ergo I don't fit in either of those categories, ergo there are more then one type of TES player. Ergo there are more than two types of RPGer".

How can something be interesting if it isn't usefull?
What was so great about improving your Willpower or Luck? Yay, my magica r egens alittle faster and my skills just improved by and unoticable ammount.
Don't get me wrong, i would have liked something more than 3 attributes+perks, but the old attribute system wasn't it.

Power doesn't come from grinding in this system, it comes from choice so grinding would be a very silly thing to do. I personally love what they did with this new system. I was using mods to bypass attributes anyways but complaining about choice. I got the best of both worlds.

Still, the lack of agility(since Oblivion) and speed is not something I can approve. There should have been more perks/skills/trees to cover those and more synergy between skills.

Rather than getting rid of them entirely, they should have taken inspiration from Oblivion's popular levelling mods - every skill increase contributes towards a small increase in attributes. For example, levelling melee skills automatically increases your strength.

:mohawk:

Whether you call it "dumbing" down, or "simplification," game companies are looking for ways to get you into the game quicker. So, instead of having to agonize over where to put xx number of points, your choice is now down to one of three. And the options here are very much tied to the type character you rolled. Mage needs magicka, warrior needs health and stamina, etc. The choice is easy, one click and you're back playing. The decision-making process is simplified.

Some of us prefer to be more involved in the building of our character, but those days are gone.

and please... don't bring they back... nevah.
I really never liked it...

Are you implying that you can't remember that there are perks in the game or did you just ignore that fact?

Cronyism. Bethesda's development team has worked together a long, long time. Right now, anything any one of them says sounds like a great idea because it's coming from their buddy. Forget about merit. Their bud is enthusiastic over it, so it must be good. No attributes seems good not because the system works well without them, but only because the system works as well as it does without them.

2nd that.

All I can do is *sigh*! It doesn't matter, you are going to argue semantics while stating that stats are bothersome, in spite of the fact that Skyrim uses stats. Oh well, easy leveling with simplicity is what you like. I won't decry that, it is something you like and that's fine. But do not say that previous TES games are bad because Skyrim found your sweet-spot outside of previous TES games and their (perceived) complexities.

Post limit.