Except that statement totally ignores that everything attributes did in past games still exists in the current game, meaning zero mechanical depth/complexity was lost, only numerical complexity.

I didn't really have much of an opinion either way on perks, only a few comments.

1) I would like to see less "increase damage x%" next time, and more unique capabilities. Picking up extra arrows from fallen enemies, for example, was a good perk.
2) I'd rather not pick a perk every level up.... even the soft level cap is more than enough to get just about everything you need without worrying about wasting perks.
3) One thing I disliked about removing the class system was leveling up because of nonsense I didn't want like bartering and lockpicking.

I like to make lots of different builds on replay, which really shows the weakness of a perk in some cases. The difference in play between a mace wielding barbarian and a swordwielding knight is mostly down to animations. At low levels you can make a semi-unique character in that vein, but once you get to a certain point, you almost have to go to either barbarian or thief.

What I want is for it to be almost impossible to make one character great at everything. So when I decide to make an orc barbarian, he's not going to end up being good at magicka or stealth. My sneaky Khajiit on the other hand should never be strong enough to take on a big bad in a fair fight. It adds replayability for me -- I can play the same quests as sneak thief, mage scholar, and barbarian -- yet it doesn't feel the same because I'm not doing it the same way.

That's obviously not true. For example, in previous games, the Speed attribute governed how fast your character could walk/run. In Skyrim, there is no way to increase how fast your character can walk/run (you can increase the length of time for which you can sprint, but that's not the same thing). And there are other examples.

Now, of course you might think that getting rid of attributes was a good decision, overall---maybe it makes character customisation/development more elegant, or it puts more focus on skills/perks, or whatever. But you can't argue for that claim by saying that all of the functionality that was present in previous games with attributes is also included in Skyrim. Because that's obviously not true.


I'm not sure about lockpicking (you can always choose not to open chests/doors), but I agree about Speech. It's nigh on impossible to avoid leveling it. One option might be to reintroduce the "offer" system, where you'd make a buy/sell offer to the merchant, and the merchant could accept/decline. But now you only increase your Speech skill if you make a lower buy offer, or a higher sell offer; accepting the merchant's "default" offer doesn't increase your Speech skill.

Aye, and eventually I did stop picking locks entirely. But that's a pretty poor way to go about it, even if there was almost never anything of worth in locked containers. It's all generic loot.

If the perks were more original they would be great. Bethesda needs to get inventive though.

I don't think it's all that bad that Lockpicking levels you up. If you're a thief, and you're level 20, mostly because you have high Sneak, Lockpicking, and Pickpocketing, then you should be weak in combat. That's the tradeoff with Stealth skills---you get the advantages of being able to move around without attracting attention and being able to get access to areas/items that others can't get to; but you have to suffer being weaker in a direct combat.

The problem with Skyrim was that there was little reason for mages/warriors to not use Lockpicking. Sure, the loot is pretty worthless. But there's very little downside to opening all the doors/chests you can find. Lockpicking had an awful risk/reward structure.

I think you're right about the direction Bethesda is going. That being said...

Skyrim may have added over 200 perks. Prior to patch 1.9, only 80 of them could be chosen. Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Arena had more skills than Skyrim with NO LIMIT on what skills a player decided to improve. A player could be tops in every skill if they desired and took the time to do so. Which one gives the most possible builds again?

Dealing with choices and consequences is what I liked about TES games. Skyrim had NO significant consequences for choices made. Being informed is very important and Skyrim was lacking in that department. A player had to go outside of the game in order to find pertinent information on skills and perks. As an example, Skyrim never let me know that if I went up the light armor side of smithing that I could NOT come over the top and pick up Daedric smithing without going all the way up the heavy armor side. My light armor guys liked the look of Daedric weapons, but no need for the armor. Not a big thing as I just did not get the improvement on found Daedric weapons, but it would have been nice to know in game. Since I liked the leather armors best, in subsequent light armor plays, I just went up the useless (for them) heavy armor side. Again, not a significant consequence, but definitely not "in game" informative.

I'd rather see them go back to skills and attributes, but alas, the masses that bought Skyrim shows that the money is elsewhere. I cannot blame Bethesda for going down that road.

Except that statement totally ignores that everything attributes did in past games still exists in the current game, meaning zero mechanical depth/complexity was lost, only numerical complexity.

Really? My Agility helped in my sneaking or marksmanship? My Intelligence or Willpower helped my spell usage and mana/magica available?

Did using my speechcraft help my personality improve which in turn helped my illusions?

I don't think what you said is true, unless I am missing something about Skyrim's skill/perk system, which is totally possible

Agreed with AlBQuirky (hmmm, sounds like a city I once passed through).
TES used to have an uniqueness about it that held it above all the other RPG pretenders. A game with not only infinite replayability but also a game where one could literally spend years on one play through. Alas, that is fast changing as TES appears to be slipping into the mainstream 'instant gratification hurry up and buy the next DLC' that has is become the modern product model.

I feel the same way. Unfortunately, in Skyrim, there is usually 1 way to accomplish a quest. And it many times involved fighting/killing. So really, the only difference is how the character accomplishes this killing.

As an example, in Morrowind, there was a quest for the Mages Guild that wanted you to collect dues from a mage. I wonder how many people ended up killing that mage and how many actually talked to him (her?) and got the dues that way? There was another quest from the Mages Guild in the same vicinity that dealt with a "rogue mage" they wanted to join the guild. Again, killing or talking were the choices.

Another Morrowind example: The Thieves Guild wanted the player to acquire a key to Nerano Manor in Balmora. A player could try to pick pocket the key from the owner, kill the owner for the key, or get the key from his assistant with talk (bribe), pick pocketing, or killing.

THAT is varying gameplay to me, not "How differently I kill the opponent."

In Skyrim, I could kill opponents with 1 handed, 2 handed, or archery. Not a lot of variety there. In Morrowind, I could kill opponents with short blades, long blades, axes, blunt weapons, spears, bows, and even hand-to-hand. Each of these were their own skills, not perks. That seems like more variety. In the killing department, anyway

Prior to 1.9, Skyrim had more possible builds than previous games. Choosing 80 perks from 251 gives a massive number of possible combinations. Of course there are some restrictions due to the "tree" structure, but the number is still massive. Of course, this is assuming that the character is at 100 for each skill. With previous games, when every character is at 100 skill, the only difference is attributes---but characters tended to be very similar in their attributes at high levels as well.

After 1.9, now each character can max out every perk and skill. There is still some scope for character differences, depending on how you spend your HP/MP/SP points when leveling up. I think Skyrim still has the highest number of possible builds here, but I''m not sure. Morrowind may also be pretty high because your number of HP is "path-dependent"---the amount of HP you gain at level up depends on your endurance at that level, and it's not calculated retrospectively.

Of course, it's a further argument whether the raw number of possible builds is a good way of measuring character customisation. (Answer: it isn't).


I don't think this has all that much to do with money. Skills + attributes isn't that much more challenging to get your head around than skills + perks. In fact, one could argue that managing skills + perks requires more thought, especially now that you have to take into account both skill and perk prerequisites. Skills + attributes is just a matter of: more = better; the main choice is when you want to increase a certain attribute, not whether you do so. (With 1.9 the same holds in principle for Skyrim, but very few people are going to get to level 252, due to the effort involved. Unlike Morrowind + Oblivion, where it was pretty much normal for everyone to get a high level character with 100 in all skills + attributes).

But anyway, I don't want to speculate about psychology, because that's partly what I find objectionable about the "Bethesda got rid of attributes and added perks because that's what casuals want" argument. As far as I know, there's no good evidence that one approach is more mentally taxing than the other. My main point is that I think the skills + perks system is just the way Bethesda wanted to make character customisation/development. It's driven by their view on what would make for a good system of character customisation in an open world RPG.

Wasn't there a thread recently where a majority of posters (myself included) agree that "dumbing down" is a nonsense term being thrown around by a select few who aren't getting what they want and only want Morrowind over again (which many feel had major faults).

Using the term "dumb" is trying to dress down what many feel was "progress"

Games like Witcher 2, Dragon's Dogma, Fable all have similar character building to Skyrim and they are the other success cases. Three or four attributes based in the three main classes which you are able to invest in as you level. The rest comes down to buying or investing in specific skills or perks again as you level. There is no feeling of wanting to go back to the beginning and start again. There is total freedom in character build direction as you level up.

The games more like Morrowind and Oblivion with complicated attribute choices aren't examples of success. The larger gaming audience expect more from the game play and the world they are put into than complicated attributes that only appeal to a few. I want better npc, armor, cities, quests, combat and not having to look up an a website a few weeks on that I made my character wrong.

Look at games like 'Zelda - Ocarina of Time' which paved a lot of the way for open world fantasy. It didn't even have attributes but the quests, animation and gameplay was amazing.

The progress was that Skyrim played much better and offered so much extra that some wearing "Morrowind blinkers" take for granted.

No, that's not true. The attributes weren't streamlined or simplified, they were removed.
1. As already stated, there's no speed.
2. Additionally, there's no willpower, which affected magicka regeneration.
3. No luck, which improved nearly every skill
4. No agility, which affected the percentage whether or not you would be staggered. There's only a flat bonus from a perk.

Thus I can see absolutely no point in your statement since gamesas essentially removed both.

Yeah, since the games tend to be even more combat-oriented and the level scaling even more ridiculous, levelling any non-combat skills amounts to increasing an additional difficulty slider. It was quite bad in Oblivion, but at least you could have those skills as minor ones not contributing to level-ups. Basically, levelling in Skyrim is just as screwed as in Oblivion (in a different way, but just as annoying) and it still requires a mod to fix this.

I also stopped lockpicking, but because that lockpicking minigame seriously bugged me. Since I was playing it on a console (which means no mods) even double so. Oblivions minigame was also stupid, but at least there was the option for the old skill-based attempt.

No, it is a perfectly valid opinion. Regardless of a majority of posters in a specific thread came to a supposed conclusion about.

Certain features were dumbed down in Skyrim. Especially when you consider FO3 a part of what fans would expect in a future TES game, because it was an experiment for features they meant to include in later games. Like Choices and Consequences, skill checks and speech checks, etc etc...Speech is almost an entirely useless skill in Skyrim outside of mercantile efforts. But that is also because there are no real choices in Skyrim, just the illusion of them with minimal to zero consequences for them. The Journal was completely dumbed down from previous games. There is no argument there at all. That is simply a fact. Descriptions are scant, 100% dependent on quest markers and often leave no pertinent information in their descriptions. Spell making and many spell types were removed(regardless of the rest of the Spell system's improvements). There are fewer weapon types and fewer specific and pertinent skills. Using an Axe should never improve your swordsmanship. It makes no sense if you know anything about handling weapons. Faction questlines are shorter, reduced in quality and inconsistent in many cases in their storyline. Just a few examples of features that were dumbed down. When we look at features which they focused on improving, what are they? Almost entirely visuals and combat related things.

Certain features also progressed. Depending on what people liked from previous games the features that were dumbed down or improved will tend to formulate their opinion. Don't try to undermine someone else's position with false standpoints just because they do it.
I am going to need you to expand on this or explain it better. The three games you listed have practically nothing in common with Skyrim's character building systems imo. Two involve what are pretty much set protagonists with little to no ability to change their appearance. DD has a rigid character development class system that levels you up JRPG style. They have attributes but they level up automatically.
These are TES games. There is no such thing as a wrong character in them so that is kind of a non issue. It isn't like it is a Souls game or something where you need every advantage you can get.
First off you make the case for me. Zelda never has and never will be a RPG. It is an adventure game and it does that perfectly. There is no room to define your character as your own, no choices to really be had and it is incredibly linear in what you can do. Which is great, for that game. I love Zelda, but I don't think TES should take any inspiration from anything in it except possibly the music score and the way they approach dungeons.

No, it made sideways progress. What is this supposed extra it offers that I take for granted that was absent from previous games and that makes up for what they took out?

It simply was a paradigm shift that left many older fans upset and appealed to a wider audience. There are exceptions to this of course but the only interest TES games even hold for me now is in the lore. Which is fine if that is what they want, they lost a customer. That is their prerogative when they decided to streamline the game for a wider audience. They didn't make that TES game better, they made it different. As they do each time.
You are now trying to put up people's opinions like they are affected by nostalgia with your "morrowind blinkers' comment. I think Skyrim is dumbed down in comparison to Oblivion as well. But that is because I really enjoyed faction questlines and Skyrim's were all pretty terrible for me. Badly written, badly paced and badly presented.

I kind of like it as it create specialization in an way who makes more sense than the 30 independent skills who was used in Morrowind and Daggerfall.
if you are an master swordsman you are not an expert with an axe, so you might prefer a iron sword over an elven axe, you should however be an total novice with other related weapons.
Perks should be able to solve this well but not done so well for weapons in Skyrim.

A fine example of Morrowind blinkers. Can you not see all the extra things Skyrim has added? They aren't things like an unnessessary number of attribute which add no real depth to the game which can't be covered by three and that for many complicate the game to a point they feel the need to start off again. Nor are they things that allow characters to run stupidly faster than a horse or jump onto roof tops. Sure there is a hardcoe of those that have the secret manual for success but most just want a game that offers enjoyment over complex workings out. The fact is that Skyrim even with all it's bugs and glitches has out sold any other game like it.

Skyrim offers so much more in the way of environment and gameplay. You may choose to call it "dumb" but dumb to me is sacrifices more important progress in the way of making Morrowind again.

I'd suggest that the impulse to "restart" the older TES games comes from the player's realization of the large number of possible choices. Obviously, if the developers take away choices, they reduce that impulse. You consider that a "good thing"? I don't.

There's nothing particularly "complex" about Morrowind. All of the default classes have some kind of fighting skill as a Major, and if a player uses that skill in combat, he/she will do fine with any character. The complaint about "complexity" is really a complaint about being given a lot of options at one time, rather than having them doled out a little at a time. Take a little responsibility for the decisions you make.

No it is because it was not obvious and they realised they did it wrong.

There was a system to Morrowind which meant choosing your main skills as minor (?!! Wtf!!??) and you lesser skills as major (again ??!! Wtf??!!) and then to make sure that you have a skill of every attribute to boost levelling (serious fail!!)

At least in Skyrim you can choose the path as you play and there is no need to go back and start again once you've downloaded the manual and realise you've done it completely back to front.

Q. In all honesty how does stamina, strength and endurance being separate attributes really give anything extra to character building? The same is with willpower & intelligence being separated. how would you build up strength without endurance and stamina? a warrior would be all three the same way a mage needs willpower and intelligence. Surely it take willpower and self discipline to train the mind anyhow and mage would need all. Why should they spend all that extra time programming them separate? Why should skills be governed this way anyhow? It makes more sense to combine strength, stamina and endurance, then combine willpower, intelligence. The thing that was missing from Skyrim IMO was an attribute for a thief, assassin style of play. One that effects precision, balance (acrobatics) and personality (charm).

Skills and perks are far more important to a build. I don't want to go back to choosing a skill and not be able to mould it the way to suit my character. How is this progress?

That was only necessary in Oblivion, mainly due to its ridiculous level scaling which would relentlessly punish inexperienced players. The problem was augmented by the levelling system, but it wasn't the main culprit.
Morrowind level scaling was much more low-key and allowed for a wider variety of characters without the any major repercussions due to level scaling. Have you actually played Morrowind? I'm replaying it just now and I'm not getting any problems despite having a quite sub-optimal character.

Also, your Morrowind bashing and name-calling is getting tiresome.

No. It was the way for Morrowind. Google it

To heck with Google, I'm playing Morrowind right now. I have an altmer spellcaster with the apprentice birthsign, no powerlevelling. The only mod affecting combat I run is magicka regeneration. Yet I do not seem to have any of the problems you mentioned.

Wow, you didn't even make an argument against what I said. Just quoted it, insulted me and then made a false claim. Sorry to expect a decent argument from you. I mean you didn't even answer the questions I asked of you nor did you address any of the points I made. That is just sad mate. I typed all that out and you give me that?

Clearly you have some kind of agenda to make, I didn't even mention Morrowind in any way for you to jump to the Morrowind Blinkers argument. Reread my post, the word Morrowind isn't in it. If you are going to be that incompetent in your argument I won't even bother next time.

You seem to forget what the R in RPG stands for. It's roleplaying, which means the main point is building your in-game character. If you want to concentrate on combat instead while sacrificing char building complexity, then you'll get a hack'n'slash game like Diablo.

Also how about actually replying instead of editing a previous post? Your forum etiquette is truly lacking.

My question is how would endurance, stamina and strength being separate be an advantage?
To build up strength and physical fitness it takes stamina and endurance.

The same is with intelligence. To train the mind it take mental self discipline, focus and willpower.

The same way a thief / assassin would have become familiar with the body as in balance, timing and personality.

Why separate them when more time and effort can be put into skills and perks?

A mage would need all the time training with the mind whereas a Battlemage would need to develop both mind and physique. A Battlemage would not however have the time to develop the physical strength of a pure warrior build. Why complicate it further? What are the real benefits obtained other than longer programming? Hence me not accepting this term "dumbing down"