Not true, because YOU decide how and what your character is in the game. Stats are not gone now though, they were only replaced, and you don't see them actually simplifying the game, cause if you think about it Perks are far more complicated and smart than attributes (where you have no thinking whatsoever).
And I beg you to reconsider what you're saying, stats, attributes, all of this is not what makes a RPG an actual RPG, If ever stats and attributes what the actual RPG elements you're talking about. They've taken them out in order to give a better RPG experience. Think about it, now not EVERY living creature out there attacks us on sight, if this was an actual action game rather than a RPG one than why would they implement such a system? Skyrim is a pure RPG, you have complete control over your character, you can develop it the way you want to, you have 100% freedom to do whatever you feel like and you're not limited almost by anything but gravity.

It's a RPG, maybe not like the ones prior to it, but it's a RPG.

I know what you're saying, but it's the same either way. While it's true that if you're getting stronger over time you should be able to get better with a few types of weapons. While true it's not a comfortable game system to make. In reality you are right, but in a game it takes out the fun with you being able to define who you are. If you're getting better with everything, then it takes out the choice factor and makes you end up being great with everything while not having any specialization. In Oblivion fans asked for more choice, now they got it, and now they complain about it too.
I'm sorry, I don't see it your way (a realistic way, but takes out the choice factor in-game, like attributes used to do in MW and OB)

Has anyone mentioned how Willpower affected your natural resistance to magic? It is the small things like that which the attributes affect more than just how much health, stamina, or magicka you have. Perhaps perks resolve some of the issues linked with this, but I am still a bit skeptical.

Overall, we will see what happens in November, but I am very wary of the continuously dumbing down of the TES series. I know it is business to cater to the numerous casual players that tend to frequent the consoles, but that isn't what made the TES series great. This is easily the worst information yet about the game, even with spears not being in.

I'm sad to see that are attributes gone and I don't think it was the ideal solution but there's no denying there were some major problems with the attributes system in Oblivion.

The removal of the class system already solved a lot of the attribute meta-gaming problems since it was no longer going to be possible (let alone necessary) to under-level in order to grind those 5/5 attribute gains. I hoped Bethesda were going for a more direct 'You are what you do' approach so that attributes would increase with skill gains on the fly rather than being chosen during level ups as in Oblivion.

The other major problem with attributes in Oblivion was that the skills and attributes no longer supported each other properly. For instance if you played a tank-style character you really needed some agility to avoid being staggered all the time. This meant raising stealth, security and marksmen skills which literally makes no sense for a tank.

If you look back to Morrowind the skills and attributes supported each other a lot better because each attribute had a greater variety of associated skills (eg Block was associated with agility providing the tank with some means of raising that attribute). I'm sure Bethesda had good reasons for reducing the number of skills in Oblivion but I think it's a good example of how simplification and streamlining can have far reaching effects that are not immediately obvious. The removal of skills has undermined the attributes system leading to the removal of attributes. Where will it end?

At the moment it's hard to tell how successful the perk system will be. A lot depends on how well it is designed and implemented. Whatever the arithmatic says I think it's naive to be certain that it will result in a vast array of diverse character builds. Perk/Talent trees are not a new concept and have been around in MMOs for years. They invariably revolve around a handful of desirable 'Prom Queen' perks which you have to wade through a plethora of 'Wall-flower' perks to get at. This usually leads to only a handful of archetypal character builds.

I think the Skyrim system has a chance to do a bit better than this because there is more scope to mix and match perk trees. However if there are too many Wall-flowers and not enough Prom Queens that will limit the amount perk trees you can afford to specialise in. I'm interested to see how it works out.

Umh... stats ARE gone... And perks are just perks they dont decide how good, smart, clever, stealthy, fast or anything your character is. What make a rpg is how much freedom you have in ways to build your character. Everything from stats, perks, abilities, skills, ways to solve problems / quests, the way you fight in combat (bad stats = you fight worse with said weapon, walk slower, swing slower, larger miss chance and so on). They are taking them out to move towards a more adventure type of game. And a system where "not everything attack you" is not a new system and it have been around for a long time in rpg's even adventure and action games. Skyrim is less and less a rpg as they remove more and more rpg elements or simply dumb them down.

Why not have stats and improve upon them and go back to the older ones where *gasp* they are not a pointless thing. Why not make them useful in dialogue, combat when using spells and abilities? I dont have anything against perks im all for more ways to make ones character. But to remove a major rpg element 100% (No health is not a attribute), no i cant agree with that and this reason alone might make me not buy the game.

Most RPS have 100% removed a classic RPG element known as turn-based combat. Most people would argue that it was a good change.

Secondly, they didn't just decide to get rid of stats because they were too complicated. They probably started with the perk system, since it was a huge success in Fallout. After developing a bunch of great perks, they realized that the attributes were doing the same things as these new perks. I am sure they brainstormed some ideas on how to get the attributes to a useful state, but eventually they settled on this outcome so they could spend time elsewhere. I am sure with enough time/money they can come up with a great way to get both perks and attributes to be effective. I can hardly wait 7 months, I would rather not wait longer.

Lasty, I have a hard time believe that of the 100-ish people working on the game, plus any play testers, that nobody put up a fuss about removing attributes. I am sure that many of them had the same issues that we are seeing pop up here, and they worked to eliminate any problems.

Is it a perfect system, probably not, none of them are. Does this mean that there will never be attributes in any future Elder Scrolls Game, who knows. Let's see what perks they have before we claim this is a simplistic system.

Agree.

I guess I'm the only one here that hates the leveling system. It's redundant to have both a personality attribute and a speech craft skill, and completely pointless when you have illusion. A speed attribute also doubles up with an athletics skill. It's a shame that luck is out, but stamina alone could determine everything luck effects. (except for rare drops, which could be equally rare with everyone) I am very excited to increase my magic as high as I please, creating a mage with increasing power every level.

mercantile and security used intelligence, as did alchemy (in TESIII). Those didn't have anything to do with Magicka. Intelligence could also have been used in dialog (more responses in-line with a character who knows a lot of stuff), as well as have a role in spell effect identification (such as for alchemy ingredients in TESIII).

It's possible the new skill system will work out fine, but I don't think the attribute system is obsolete. It just needed to be reworked and retooled, not unlike several skills, to provide more diversity, distinction, and function.

However, I am optimistic regarding the new leveling system and I hope it is a good fit for the playstyle of TES. While I like attributes and skills, I felt like I needed mods to fix a system that felt restrictive and arbitrary (mods that have skills affected by more than one attribute, dynamic and instant attribute increases, removal of the necessity of a level-up screen). A revamp might be in order, but equally likely might be that the existing system had the right idea.

I think the proof will be in the tasting of the pudding. If I can create at least two characters that play very differently and provide different game experiences for me, then I think the new system will be successful. Success would also depend on if I can merge the three archetypes (Mage, Warrior, Thief), like the spellsword or battlemage classes, and also have a unique play experience different from playing as a warrior, or a pure spellcaster, or a pure thief.

Actually, from one of the articles, it seems things like one handed swords and two handed swords may still be separate skills.

However, the moral of the story truly is that you don't need 8 attributes that were trivial at best in defining your character. I don't know where people think that they are simplifying the game. You still have three attributes that YOU manipulate. You still have numerous skills that YOU manipulate and you now have 280 perks to choose from which YOU manipulate. I'm not seeing how the game doesn't have you choosing how your character grows and progresses. Too many people overreacting instead of looking at the big picture.

Frankly, attributes like intelligence and what not have outlived their usefulness as technology has developed. These attributes were required to define your character in pen and paper RPGs because that's all you had was your imagination and a spreadsheet of your characters stats. Now, we can visually define our characters so why have the extra bloat when we can just condense them into their core parts, which they were always Health, Magicka and Stamina. You don't need numbers to define every part of your character, you can do that with your actions as more player skill is added instead of dice rolls (character skill). TES is in a good place now where it's equal amounts of player skill and character skill. You still have plenty of numbers to define your character where it can't be visually defined, such as health, magicka, stamina and your skills and now you have other things that will define your character even farther visually and by numbers and that is perks. You didn't lose anything, you only gained customization. I don't see why 'some people don't see this.

If they take out skills and add in "Feats" where Feats do everything skills did and more, sure I'm all for it.

I like how everyone complaining about the removal of attributes ignores the fact that everything attributes did is still in the game in one form or another. All that happened was the removal of a (now) redundant game mechanic. Do folks really want a mess of sloppily redundant game mechanics in Skyrim just so they can say "Looks I got 100 INT!!!"? Seriously?

Lets just say that i dont agree.

The problem is that oblivions stat system is broken because they (the devs) decided to streamline it down to a level where a 5 year old could understand it. Now they are removing it because they are to lazy to fix it. By removing attributes they might as well call it a adventure game as it remove lots of ways that they could potentialy use the system... Everything from the ability to talk your way out of problems to how you fight, luck and much more. Instead we have health... and stamina and "mana" can you tell me how these CHANGE your character how these allow you to handle situations or talk your way out of problems.. They dont honestly they are not even attributes they are just health and mana and stamina nothing special all they decide is how many spells, attacks, hits you can take.

Ah so because the old system was flawed its a great idea to remove it. Note that the devs is the ones that made it flawed in the first place. They removed a way to customize and build your character. I have no idea why people are thinking that it dont remove customization.

If you listened to what most are saying, you would understand that we aren't complaining about losing the way attributes worked in the previous system (which svcked), but complaining that they removed them instead of fixing them. Attributes should not be just some way of increasing your Health / Magicka pools.. they are innate characteristics of your avatar that spread across all of your skillsets.

* double post removed *

The attribute system in Oblivion was almost identical to Morrowind's, so apparently Morrowind was made for 5 year olds. Also, you aren't getting the fact we still have attributes, the attributes that actually count and have an impact on the game. The attributes that everyone aimed for when they increased the attributes. What did you raise endurance for? Health and stamina. What did you raise intelligence for? Magicka. What did you raise strength for? Damage, which is now in just weapon skill and perks. Also, chances are encumbrance will be tied with stamina but we don't know yet. The old attributes weren't special. They just sat there and only went into the three pure attributes and for everything else they might as well not affected anything.



But that's the thing, there is no reason to keep the old attributes. People need to realize that it takes development time to try to fix the old attributes when we already have a system that does the same thing as the attributes did and more. It's just redundant and redundancies are what cause imbalances in the game and subsequently ruins the game. The only argument I see of keeping them is because they were in previous games. Why keep something when it serves no useful function. It's basically the video game equivalent of hoarding, keeping your dead hamster because "It could be useful in the future".

And that is a flaw... Why cant you raise strength for how well you hit with weapons (ok i know the combat is twitch based and not character based (except damage), or int to find solutions to problems, new quests and talking your way out of things, or endurance to allow you to run for a longer time, swim, resistances... and so on and so forth. Overall there are less ways to build your character, less freedom. I had hoped they would improve on the old systems and make them better not remove old stuff because they want to streamline the game even more.

I have no idea why people think it did remove customization. What part of "the new system does everything the old system did and more" do folks not understand?

But that's the point, you don't need int to find solutions. This isn't a pen and paper RPG, these things can be physically done by the player now. Why do you need a stat that says "intelligence" and have the game do the work for you. That's not a game, that's basically just watching some kind of show because you aren't doing anything, the game is doing all the work. How is that fun? Why not find solutions to problems on your own and why can't you decide which weapon you use does what to increase damage with perks and weapon skill? So you don't need attributes to do this. Stamina is basically synonymous with endurance as well.



We've already crunched the numbers, there are exponentially more ways to build your character, meaning far more freedom. This is a quantifiable fact. I don't know where people get "less customization and less freedom" because it's the opposite. In the end, you have more control over building your character in unique ways than you have ever had.

Because Bethesda decided that your skill in the specific weapon matters a LOT more than your raw strength, it makes sense too.


Because if all that Int does is solve puzzles for you, it's a dump stat you'll have little interest to raise since you can actually solve the puzzles by yourself.


You can unlock new quests depending on your skill levels too, attributes do not have a monopoly on the thing


This is what the Speechcraft skill is for. Are you trying to get the benefits of a high Speechcraft skill without having to train it at all? We want players to specialize more, not become jack of all trades master of all cause attributes solve all problems for them that skills SHOULD be the dominant factor.


Increase Stamina at level up to run/swim longer, increase HP at level up to resist more


Removing standard attributes and only keeping the direct effects that mattered (HP/MP/Sta) and letting skill checks handle by themselves most of the work is the correct way to improved the old system.

Well lets just agree to disagree. Not much point in going in circles.

Different people just have different perspectives is all. It's clear you have a strong opinion and feel that others are missing the point but it's perfectly possible for intelligent people to have differing opinions.

For me it's not about the loss of stats it's about the difference in the way your character will now be developed. I've always loved the 'You are what you do' concept that underpinned TES character development. The attribute system in Oblivion was poorly implemented and had some huge problems as a result. However the underlying design is extremely elegant:
Actions increase Skills increase Attributes increase Health, Mana, Stamina, Encumberance etc.
From this it is possible to imagine a system where your character is entirely defined by your actions without any need for levels (or indeed visible stats) at all. Unfortunately I think there are probably now too few skills to really make this kind of system work since each attribute has to be supported by appropriate skills.

I'm not saying the perk system won't work, hopefully it will be very good. But let's not pretend that choosing perks is a 'You are what you do' system because it's been around for years in the more conventional levelling by xp RPGs.

People tend to think perks will be the substitute for attributes. No, skills are going to be, in fact skills always mattered a lot more than attributes.

Want to hit things harder? Raise your weapon skill. Want to cast spells better? Raise your magic skills. Want to be a more social person? Raise speechcraft.
Things that skills can't govern like encumbrance and running speed can be raised as perks.

So yeah, you can still make just as varied characters as before.

I posted this earlier in another thread, but I raise strength to carry more and do more damage and I raise speed to move faster. None of this has anything to do with Health, Magicka, or Stamina. So I really didn't find his explanation sufficient.

But I really am not too upset about attributes being removed. As long as the game is good and the perks are good I'm fine with it.

We'll have to wait and see. I suspect there will be a fair number of mundane perks such as 'increase one-handed weapon damage by 5%' in amongst the more interesting ones.