Never complained about it, i hated attributers and i think this will add much more replayability

You do know that it's not just Oblivion's leveling system, that basic system was in previous TES games also. I wish people would stop labeling things Oblivion and say they are terrible because it makes it seem like Morrowind had a superior system when in reality it had it too :pinch:

Wait wait, from what im seeing, people are STILL going ape[censored] over this?! People... c'mon! Take a step back and say, personality was a useless skill entirely, speed made you hilariously rediculous when moving, luck was for a small number of background things, but not vital at all, and agility just added bow damage. Sheesh you always forgot how rabid and crazy people can get on the internet untill you read through a page of comments here or on anything pertaining to The Lord of the Rings.

Okay, I'll try to explain it once more.

# We don't care how useless something was in previous games. We don't want the old systems back. Instead of cutting previously useless things, we want them made useful.

# I don't think the 3 attributes left encompass all the previous attributes in a sensible way. Increasing this number to 6, 7 or 8 would help to distinguish characters further.

# Attributes are not redundant. They are another throttle to modulate your character's abilites, yes, but from a different angle that adds complexity and is sensible because it is a reflection of reality. You also have two values that influence your weapon damage: The weapon's base damage and the level of your skill. Both work from different angles, yet you wouldn't say one of the two is redundant.

Is that really such a stupid argument to make? :shrug:

For the speed of movement, I don't know what they have thought, but for the attributes' effects on your actions, they were redundant from the start, as your skill progression would do the same, so instead of your agility, only your bow skill determine your effectiveness with bows, and so on...

And your speechcraft would determine NPCs reaction to your speeches.

And IMHO luck was a mistake from the start, as it did not have an instantly visible and satisfying effect at all.

I like this system, been playing rpg for decades...i honestly dont care about having the same exact mechanics anymore.


life is too short to be playing the same carbon copy RPGs for your entire exsistance.

Okay, I'll try to explain it once more.

# Why can't they be "cut" and made useful at the same time? Perks are useful. The remaining attributes are useful. Skills are still useful and will probably be made more useful. Racial bonuses, I hope, will be made more useful. If Bethesda follows through on their word that all effects of the old attributes still exist in another form, then the only reason to have actual numbers staring you in the face is to shut people up about them.

# They don't. They encompass most of them, and perks are meant to handle the rest. And attributes never distinguished a character. They were just the result of what you happened to train most in any given level. Skills defined what one could actually do moreso than attributes, and perks will definitely go toward making all character distinguishable.

# Weapon base damage is not redundant because it distinguishes one type of weapon from another. Without it there would be no reason to use anything but your first sword. Additionally, its effect is different than that of a skill's effect. Weapon base damage is constant, skill effect increases with level. Strength worked in the exact same fashion as skill level, but on a smaller scale. All it did differently was affect multiple weapon types. And THAT is completely redundant once you have both skills at 100. And THAT is something that you will inevitably do if you intend on getting max Strength. So you were basically increasing a skill's level to increase weapon damage and earn higher modifiers on an attribute which increased weapon damage. Cut out Strength, increase the effect of skill level, and you get to the same place in the same fashion.

I think it's time the naysayers picked a different attribute to reminisce about.

# But what you don't get is that keeping an old system just because it was in previous games is a bad plan. First of all, we have a new system that does what the old system did and more. Secondly, it would take precious development time to make them useful and then adding them on top of the new system is redundant and will cause imbalances as you just doubled your sources for damage and other effects, that quickly gets out of hand. You just can't say "We want the old stuff but also the new stuff that does the same thing" because it quickly gets out of control and unbalanced and then the same people that said "We want the old stuff but also the new stuff that does the same thing" will be back in here after playing Skyrim and saying "We want you to fix the game because it's too easy because we get too powerful too quickly."

# The 3 attributes we have left is what the 8 attributes represented anyhow, there is no difference. Having 8 attributes does not distinguish your characters further, we have already seen how little impact they have on your character and all character that anyone made will always have the same attributes maxed out, the useful ones like intelligence and strength. With the 3 true attributes plus 280 perks, that is far more distinguishing that 8 attributes ever were.

# As I explained above, theya re redundant when piled on top of the new system that does the same thing but more efficiently and better. Attributes added far less complexity than the new system does and was just a nice row of big numbers people could look at. As for being a reflection of reality, it really isn't, the new system is a reflection of reality, where skills decide your characters overall power. In real life, if you have some scrawny guy that is a master of swords and a big muscular brute that has never used a sword before, the scrawny guy is going to do more damage with a swing than the strong guy because things like having the right leverage in your swing is were all the damage comes from in a swing, not brute strength. The weapon's base damage is to reflect the weapons quality. Otherwise, there would be no use for different types of weapons and armor and thus you would just have swords, regular armor and so on. Weapon value on weapons is a very different thing than attributes and can't be equated that way.

Besides in truth, the attributes aren't cut, they are still in the game in a different form. Endurance is still here, you get to increase health and stamina, strength is still here but is in form of weapon skill and perks. Intelligence is still here, it's just straight up magicka. Personality will probably take the form of some kind of speechcraft system and so on.

# Something that doesn't exist isn't made useful. That is contradictory.

# The "effect" of attributes as a general, independent modifier for skills is gone and cannot be replaced by perks because those are skillbound. Attributes did not distinguish characters so far because there was no real limit to them. Perks wouldn't distinguish your character either if you could get them all.

# No anology is perfect, but I think it still applies. Where weapon base damage distinguishes one type from another, inherent attributes distinguish one character from another. Weapon base damage is not that constant (enchantments, need to to repair), but that is beside the point. That attributes affect multiple skills is exactly why it is not redundant, because this effect cannot be replaced by skillbound perks or the three remaining attributes in a sensible way. It also doesn't get redundant when you have both skills at 100, in the same way that skills don't get redundant when you have the weapon with the highest base damage - there is still room for improvement.
Your last example is again based on the old system, and I said that I don't want that. It is true that by cutting strength you get the same end result, but the way there is less complex - you could cut even more while still getting the same result, but this is not desireable.

I don't quite follow on this statement



Except the "effect" of attributes as a general, independent modifier for skill is not gone and CAN be replaced by perks. People think just because perks are skill bound they can't achieve the things that the new 3 attributes don't from the original 8 attributes. Strength's damage increase is replaced by perks. Agility's bonus to ranged damage is replaced inherently by the new ranged combat system. Speed is replaced by sprint. Encumbrance can be replaced by stamina. Also things like magicka regen or further cost reduction on spells can be handled by perks in magic skills. Everything is replaced and accounted for and we still have more with the insanely large amounts of perks. Nothing has been removed and that's what people need to realize, the game isn't getting less, it's getting more, MUCH more.

They took them out because Todd said they "trickled into other stats". They are now folded into perks and health/magicka/stamina.

# You answer an argument that says I do not want the old system by saying that the old system is bad. I really don't know how to make it any clearer, sorry.
You say it would get out of hand, but that is not necessarily true. Attributes don't have an inherent trait that makes everything too powerful. Balancing each individual perk is much more difficult than adjusting a modifier-value to skills.

# You are again arguing with the old system in mind. You are fighting strawmen!

# And I say they are not redundant because they work from a different angle. Maybe we just have to agree to disagree here.
If I use your example, my point is that a scrawny master swordsman will be weaker than a strong master swordsman. You portrayed the example to make it look like I want attributes to be more important than skills, which is not the case.
And you are exactly right, if you removed weapon base damage you would just have regular stuff, just as by removing all attributes you just have regular base characters. And yes again, we still have 3 attributes, which is exactly why there should be no conceptual problem to increase the number to 6 (I think speed an luck could be cut), to prevent shoving things together that don't belong together.




# I didn't follow his statement either. Something that doesn't exist can't have a use.

# A skill bound modifier is not an independent modifier. There is no way around this until they add "free" perks. :shrug:

There are three attributes in the game, They took five of them out because they discovered that some of the effects of the attributes were already in some of the skills. Watch the G4 interview with Todd Howard. He tells you everything you need to know.

So are all perks skill related? There isn't any "free perks"?

Every time you level up, You will be able to chose a perk from the perk tree. Like Fallout.

I mean free perks as in perks not tied to a skill.

Every skill has a perk-tree with 12-20 perks, and every time you level up, you can pick a perk. The perks you pick may require perks further down in the tree or a specific skill level.
Which I think is a great system to specialize your skills, but not much beyond that.

So no perks to increase speed or carrying weight?

I wish I could find it, but theres this quote by Blizzard developer who said stream lining attributes allows more hybrid character builds. They stream lined attributes in DIII as well, on top of making them static increases per level up.


It was a great explanation, saying how it didn't result in a gear block and the need for spreading "stats" too thin.

# And your trying to discredit my argument by saying I only respond with my wishes instead of evidence, which I gave reasoning why they can't coexist while your just using a discrediting argument and not giving any refuting evidence. I have nothing against attributes, it's not like I was hoping for them to be removed but they were upgraded to a better system and thus is why I'm happy about it.

# I don't understand the logic here. You say you want the old system to stay but then say I can't say anything about the old system in conjunction with the new system, which is the whole root of your discussion point here. So if your asking for it's return then why can't I use it in a rebuttal. I don't get this.

# I guess we do because they work from the same angle exactly. Also, a scrawny swords master will be physically weaker than a strong swords master but it still doesn't mean that the scrawny one can't do as much damage as the strong swords master because him being scrawny could have given him a perspective of how to make up for his weakness in another way where the strong swords master didn't attempt to make up for his physical weakness so he didn't need to improve that aspect. So yes, the scrawny sword master can still do just as much damage as the strong swords master.

Not really. I keep seeing "Every character is the same when you have no attributes!!!!!111!!!" Yet, I guarantee you no two characters will be the same when leaving the "sewers", you will all be different in some way, just like you were in previous games. Now I'm sure your going to say "But Sleign, what about when you make the character first thing, you'll be the same" and to that I say, everyone is the same at character creation in the other games too, the only difference is race and it will be the same for Skyrim.



The perk system in Skyrim is quite a bit different than fallout's. You can perks differently.

There could be, but they would have to be bound to a certain skill. Which ones, we can only speculate.



# I can't see any reasoning why they couldn't coexist - the existing 3 attributes coexist fine with the perks.:shrug:

# Really? "You say you want the old system to stay"? I have repeatedly said that that's exactly what I do not want.

# Even if I were to accept that example, which I still think is not true - how would that work in other aspects? Should a (sorry) stupid alchemist be just as good as an intelligent one? Should a clumsy archer be just as good as one with high dexterity? Some abilites just can't be compensated.

you'll notice more and more AAA RPGS and even mmoRPGs are trading in chosing flat numbers for actual abilities that do interesting things (cough Perks), and let the flat numbers get taken care of in the background.


A welcome trend.

# I explained it pretty clearly earlier. The current attributes are pure attributes, they are health, magicka and stamina. They don't give bonuses beyond themselves. The old attributes cannot coexist with the new system because the new system has damage increase from skills and perks and then if you have strength too, that's even more damage. This is what I'm talking about getting out of hand. They just reverberate off of each other and get out of hand, it's a redundancy that doesn't need to happen.

# Then what the hell are you discussing this with me then, the old system is gone and the new one is in place, if you don't want the old system to stay then your on the same page as me :bonk:

#But that's the thing, you don't need a number to govern your character or other characters traits like intelligence, that can be measured now in video games in respect to NPCs, by the way they act. You can tell a dumb NPC from a smart NPC easily by their dialogue, why do you need a number when you have conversation and actions to govern that. As for the intelligence of your character, you decide how intelligent your character. I for one will have my character a prodigy spellsword. Dexterity comes with practice. When you first start out as an archer, your going to be "clumsy" in comparison to when your a much higher level. This is covered by skills.



Well speed has been replaced by sprint and carrying more weight might be tied to stamina, which makes sense.

When will we end this? Todd Howard has said that everything the attributes did still exists in the game but is done and shown elsewhere.

Yes, he only used intelligence as an example because it's the best one. Of course there will be carrying weight, I'd bet there are varying speeds between melee and stealth characters, etc.

Bzzzt hit and a miss!

Actually, in the new system to get to max level you will have to get H2H to 100 in order to get to the bottom of your wanted tech tree. whereas you would just have needed to raise it until you hit 100 str before. In actuallity the new system is going to mean even more raising of skills you dont use. You going to have to raise all of your magic skills not just the ones you use.