A very unwelcome trend.

This is literally the dumbing down of games. Like I said elsewhere we are fast approaching a point where we are going back to game design in the vein of the atari 2600. Pretty 1 button games were you wonder around and make big explosions to keep the drooling idiot that's playing the games attention.

And you're missing out entirely what's actually happening.

They're taking out a number and grind system that made leveling a chore and replacing it with actual things we will see in the game.

Are people so simple minded that they need to see how strong or smart they are as a numerical stat instead of deducing "hey, I'm a strong/smart guy" by realizing they're carving opponents down with ease or heaving out magic at will?

# I can't be so sure about that - stamina could very well affect running speed, for example. Todd said that everything is supposed to be in the new system, but not exactly what goes where.
You say that it will just get out of hand to have another modifier, which is of course always a possibility, but many, many RPGs to it without any problems. I don't see how Skyrim couldn't. :shrug:

# lol, yeah, we are on the same page in most aspects. I just think the system could be even better with more attributes, and I don't think the risks are as great as you say. But we could talk about that all day long and wouldn't come to a definitive answer. It's just a difference of opinion.

# I'm all for replacing numbers with actions, but I'm sceptical if that is possible in all aspects. Hopefully Skyrim will surprise me.



Speaking for myself, I will end this now. I have tried to make my point repeatedly, but the meaningful discussions I have had about this - I can count them on one hand.
There is no more meat on this bone.

Pretty much thats what an RPG is. As you strip away what makes an RPG you are moving more to an action game. That is pretty much what Skyrim is.

The grind is not going anywhere, In fact it is going to be worse. It has just been made idiot proof. I am sorry if you don't understand that fact.

My only serious character was an acrobat, because after long scrutiny, that's the only one that interested me.

I am pretty tired of people thinking they know how to make a game better than bethesda, todd howard already explained why 5 attributes were removed and that they have incorporated those attributed into other systems. It makes me laugh how there are always those who always think they know better. BGS have learned a lot since they made oblivion, they know what they are doing, and i have every faith that skyrim will be awesome attributes or not. If anyone wants to have a go at me then that's fine, i am confident in my belief that it will all work much better than in oblivion, and we will all see for ourselves on 11.11.11.

Bzzzt, hit and a miss. This is not what you have to do. If you raise H2H you are only going to get access to H2H perks, doesn't really help if your not a H2H character. The new system makes it where you don't have to raise skills that you aren't using. In the old games, if you wanted to raise strength for more encumbrance, then you had to level skills that were governed by strength and with the new system, if you want a perk for your destruction spells, then you raise your destruction spells, you don't have to go wildly off path for it.

I think you need to re-read some info friend. If your saying that the only perks you will be able to buy are ones directly tied to those skills, then what choice is there at all? Why call them perks at all as they are the same exact thing as they were in Oblivion.

How it really is going to work is there are going to be perks related to level, and then perks related to skills. As you go higher you will unlock perks to buy that make those skills better yes, but there will be perks not tied to skills either. That means in the end, to Buy all the perks you want you will need to be max level. To get max level your going to need to max out all skills. I doubt the cap will be 180, but lets say 100 your still going to have to grind more skills then you would use if you were say a sword user, with heavy armor that uses destruction magic and stealth.

I am sorry you feel that people don't have a right to complain about a huge change that a lot of people think is a huge mistake.

"WELL U MAEK GAME" yeah, that argument was old 10 years ago bub:)

From the information we have and the fact they are supposed to be similar to Fallout 3, whatever skills you used to gain your level you may choose a perk from. Also, the level "cap" is 50 and you get one perk per level so it seems that you will be capping at 50 perks out of 280. When you reach 50, your not going to max out all your skills. I think you've missed the GI article explaining how the new leveling system works, because you aren't supposed to max out all skills and it's been said it is extremely hard to max out all skills and when you do, your level will be somewhere in the 70s and the official "cap" for levels is 50.

I wonder if , when dungeons and Dragons first came out, if it had a perk system ( it's present incarnation has feats ), that covered everything, rather than attributes, which did nothing unless you rolled at the extremes of a bell curve, and every version since the first gave you loads of options so you could actually roll a character with something, anything, interesting in their stats, if we would still consider attributes as such an essential component of role playing games.
It seems similar to the class system, omg they've removed classes, they were essential. Actually they weren't, not in TES with it's open progression system, they were only useful for those who, quite rightly, need a sense of background for their characters, and in OB usually nerfed your character, making counter intuitive custom skill sets a very good idea.
Please feel free to disagree, just throwing some food for thought out there.

Actually it states there is no level cap,

From RPS


There is word of a soft cap on other sites, but you don't stop leveling.... sooo yeah.

This doesn't really "put my fears to rest" because while what he says is true, and more over, the attributes didn't work all that well before, they did the familiar solution of cutting down instead of fixing. There are many ways those attributes could've been done in inventive and interesting ways that would've made them worthwhile and rewarding as a plethora of other RPG's new and old have shown. I can't really figure out why weren't they fixed instead of cut down and streamlined. All that said, I don't really think the loss of them affects anything much in this game, but it's just a peculiar - and in a way - sad thing that all the possibilities and potential they had are now cut down quite significantly.

I am sorry you feel the need to belittle my perfectly valid opinion by trying to make me look like a petulant child, but in doing so you have only made yourself look like one. It is perfectly reasonable to have opinions, i was simply stating my opinions and also that i am growing tired of people thinking that they always know better than everyone else, including the game devs themselves. I put my faith in bethesda because i don't know anything about making computer games and the way todd described the new system and why they removed the attributes seemed perfectly reasonable to me, yet certain other people, who probably don't know anything about making games either are saying that bethesda are WRONG to do this even after the explanation given by todd himself. but whatever, i think i need a break from these forums for a while. :brokencomputer:

Ok, so yeah, did you not see the parentheses around "cap"? The point is to show that it is the "soft cap" for leveling and the actual hard cap is in the 70s. So yes, there is a cap to leveling ultimately seeing as eventually you will run out of skills to level. The point is that level 50 is where the game is designed for you to stop. Anything beyond that is going to be very difficult and time consuming in Skyrim, something that wasn't so in previous games. So yeah, my last post still stands.



Actually there was a poll earlier that showed the majority of people on these forums think it was a good idea to change. The rest either just don't like the idea because they preferred attributes, don't understand it or don't like change because they are bound by nostalgia (which seems to be a rampant problem *cough* Morrowind *cough*.

There are pen and paper systems out there that don't use stats. I have played a few demos of them. They were more like interactive stories however, and it didn't really feel like a game. More like an improv live action play.

Removing the game behind the game does not always end with the best results.

Attributes has two weaknesses, the first is the attribute increase system on level up who is distracting from gameplay, this is easy to fix as it's done in some Oblivion mods, just increase attributes automatically based on skill increase, basically two increase in two hand weapons give one in strength.

The other issue is far more fundamental, as novice skills raises faster than expert ones the best way to raise strength is to kill minor enemies with weapon you have low skill in. This work against specialisation and they want more specialisation, this is true for both the standard and the moded way to raise attributes.
It's nothing who stop them from calculation a character strength if they need it, just use max of one hand, two hand weapons and hand to hand.

However removing attributes has made the races more equal, yes they can compensate with skills but novice skills raise fast so if you start with 5 or 15 in a skill has limited impact after the first couple of hours.

I'm more annoyed with removal of both athletic and acrobatic, as it was fun intercepting deer or jumping around. However I did not miss it much in Fallout 3 so I guess I can live with it.

People will level until they can no longer level. You will still grow in power until you can no longer level. Thus there really is no cap.





I put as much faith in an official TES forum poll as I do in that mail from the Nigerian scammer offering me 31 million dollars.

People who come to these forums are the most hardcoe of fans. Most with any voice of dissent are chased off very fast. So you have a positive echo chamber that only really has one feeling on things, and thats a good one. Your examples are invalid as your source is biased.

The people who complain do so in the hopes the game will be fixed. Blind support of everything helps no one. A voice of opposition no matter how small can make people look at what they are doing and realize maybe they are doing something wrong.

Correct, but what about those that aren't opposed. And it isn't blind support, it is support based on explanations given by todd howard that to many are perfectly reasonable and logical explanations. But strike what i just said, there is no point in arguing it's getting me nowhere.

You complained, about people complaining. You then complained because I complained about your complaining.

Blind support is taking his word it will be better. He also said level scaling would be totally awesome in oblvion, and that the persuasion mini game was the best thing ever. Fool me once, shame on me...

Ok I guess I need to spew forth my wisdom...or whatever...

No grind... This likely echoed in todds head...

Grind.. athletics acrobatics.... BUT ALSO... stregth for non warriors.. endurance for none warriors.... intel for none mages...will for non mages.. speed for .. everyone...

As a mage you couldnt not grind endurance and strength.. you had no real choice as the game wasnt balanced to alloow you not to.

Here is a question... Why not fix the attribute system by giving stats a larger role instead of taking the lazy way out and removing it (All large "rpg" devs seem to be taking this to a new leve). I mean Why not have skills, perks, attributes?

Have you already modded with the Creation Kit? No?
Have you already used the Radiant Quest or the other new features? No?

With the old system it was necessary to use attributes in some scripts to make them work properly.
With the new system it has to be done different. But that doesn't mean it's bad.
We can't say how things change yet because we don't have any idea what the Creation Kit offers to us.

There is still room for quest perks alongside skill perks. Making the final perk count grow.

I'm one of those people who think Oblivion was a huge step back from Morrowind's RPG game-play.

But I think Skyrim's changes are all for the good, and they have learned from their mistakes in Oblivion, and they have stated the fact several times in different interviews, sometime under cover and sometime completely open when there was no denying it.

So yeah, I think that the new system is great and addresses a lot of game-play issues, like:

Playing for the sake of increasing attributes, as compared to the play for the sake of getting better in our actions and developing our character's effectiveness and general standing compared to the world.

Previously you had to use Bows all the time to increase your agility in order to become more effective in sneak, now you only have to sneak around as much as you like, so no double tier of bounded skills to force you do things that you might not like.

Now you can make effective sneaky characters that do not use bows, but slit throats from behind, or something like that.

You can now make characters that use any combination of skills as you like and as effective as you make your character by practice.

And your character would grow and advance in levels naturally along the way, as you use your skills, and is not hampered by a predefined class, that would force you use non-class skills in order to gain maximum attribute points in the level-up sessions.

In effect you define your class in playing as you like, so if you play like a thief then you advance your thiefly skills and are in the thief class, and so on...

This is the best vanilla leveling system of the elder scrolls series yet!