I voted 'Other'. I'm not really sure about this. If I understand correctly, the skill/perk system they're describing is very much like the skill/augmentation system used in the first Deus Ex game - which is widely regarded as being among the best action-RPG games ever made - with the difference that skills are raised by practice rather than winning skill points for quest completeion.

Having said that, in Deus Ex all characters started off as the same template - an augmented human. In Elder Scrolls, you start as one of a number of widely different races. I can see how this could work, with different races having different starting bonuses/penalties to different skills or the three derived attributes (health, magic, stamina). So Orcs might start with a 5 point bonus in melee skill and boosted stamina, while Bosmer might start with a bonus to the stealth skill but a penalty to health. Or, alternatively, the different races could start with a selection of predefined perks.

I think that, if done well, this system could be brilliant. It will be a break with the systems we've come to expect from Elder Scrolls, but that doesn't mean it'll be a bad action-RPG. Of course, if you're holding out for a pure, stats heavy RPG then it's bad news. And if it's done badly we might end up with a horrible, unbalanced, uninspiring and frustrating mess.

On the fence on this, maybe until the reviews come out .

Attributes were redundant in Oblivion. I'm very happy that they're being removed.

For all the people who miss attributes, here's what you can do:

1. Add up your Blade + Blunt + HtH skills. The total is your "Strength".

2. Add up your Athletics + Acrobatics + Light Armor skills. The total is your "Speed".

Etc etc.

There seems to be a weird "more is better" attitude driving this thread. This is misguided. If I design a game that has hundreds of stats, then it's just going to be confusing, counterintuitive, and muddled. If I have stats for "strength", "might", "power", "endurance", "stamina", "toughness", "size", "muscles", "fighting", "brawling", "swords", "blades", "fencing", "attack", "prowess", and so on, this does not make my game better or more realistic -- it makes it a confusing, redundant mess. In Oblivion, attributes had almost no mechanical effect on the game, and they were pretty much just a function of your skills anyway. They were also responsible for some of the worst counterintuitive levelling dynamics in the game -- e.g., an Orc Barbarian could achieve 100 Intelligence long before an Altmer Wizard.


Hello perks, goodbye attributes. And good riddance.

Hello Action RPG, hey soon we'll have an FPS in a Fantasy World!

So the argument is that statistics which don't have an immediate, specific purpose in a gameplay system featured in the vanilla game, are redundant?

Okay, roleplay scenario for bonus points:
Your character is exploring a dungeon and finds what appears to be the entrance to a secret treasure chamber, but it's blocked by a gigantic round boulder. Your character, at this time, has no magic. Explain the mechanic used to determine whether or not your character is able to successfully move the boulder out of the way.

I would want them in but I want some of the effects of the Attributes to change.

I hope they are, this trend of "let's give players less to do and call it 'streamling" is a horrible one. When I buy a game I want to include more stuff to play, not less.

And this is why Skyrim will be an action-RPG, not a pure (or stats-heavy) RPG. But as a counter-question, in which previous Elder Scrolls game did any equivalent scenario exist? Daggerfall, possibly (I wouldn't know).

Now if this was a pen 'n paper RPG, serious limitations on potential scenarios would be disastrous. In a CRPG like this, the question is 'does the rule-set let the developers create all the scenarios they want to create'? Because if Bethesda don't care about rock moving scenarios, then they aren't going to be in there whatever the attributes or stats of the player character are.

Limiting the rule-set may limit modding opportunities, but Bethesda have never deliberately made the game-engine/scripting/whatever support anything they didn't put in the game themselves.

Stats are required for RPGs... IMO as TES strays further and further away from 'RPG', into the land of 'Adventure Sim', I think there is less and less of a need for stats, as the typical player no longer seems to care about them and what they traditionally represent.

***Of course, for me ~no stats = no purchase; because [for me] that would be the last straw.

I can't think of one, although it could be argued that as game environments become increasingly interactive and complex (physics, destructible environments, etc), this scenario and a thousand others like it become more likely as the series progresses, not less.


I understand, but my point is that a ruleset shouldn't be limited to a given plot or environment, except where a game is intended to be extremely linear. Attributes provide a comparative reference for an incredibly vast array of possible scenarios, in roleplay as well as gameplay, and all they need consist of are a handful of names given numerical values. How they're increased, and the specific purposes they serve in a given situation isn't my concern.

They're a very elegant answer to all the skills and perks that will never be in the game, but which our characters might theoretically be using and increasing.

Attributes are useless if not well supported (or even used) in the game. IMO the stats should affect positively EVERYTHING that they can plausibly be applied; but that's not going to happen in a game where the [statistical side of the] PC is an afterthought.

I want attributes to be included, but I don't care if they are done the same way as past TES games. I actually prefer Fallout's SPECIAL system. It does the same thing with less OCD.

The devil is in your own phrase - "possible scenarios". My point is that in a single-player CRPG there are no 'possible scenarios'. There never have been. There are only the actual scenarios put in by the developer. Anything else is (except by the rarest and happiest accident) a bug or an exploit. If the developer doesn't want to put in any scenarios where character attributes (rather than perks or skills) are needed, then those attributes simply aren't needed.

Now I agree, a game where the developer never puts in that sort of scenario might be much poorer for it. But it's poorer because the developer chose to limit the scenarios, not because they chose to limit the ruleset. In a CRPG the ruleset is made to fit the game, not the other way round.

Removing attributes would for me be a sign that Bethesda don't want to make RPGs anymore. Sure it'll have RPG elements, but it will still just be an action-adventure game.

The game can of course still be a good.

And I agree for the most part. I feel it's a fault -- or at best, a limitation -- of the [open-world roleplaying] game if there exists no gameplay mechanic that needs to reference a character's physical strength, etc. But as I said, the existence of attributes as a point of reference is more important than any single purpose they might serve in gameplay.

It seems to me that removing attributes in preference to more specific stats (skills, perks, magicka...), if stats are to be removed at all, is streamlining in the wrong direction.

Edit: I know it's time to take a break from a thread when I'm inversely ninja'd at better explaining my own point, two posts back. I think we're on the same page, andyw, and I'm just doing a worse job of putting it into words. Yeah - I'd rather scenarios that make attributes necessary be there in the first place.

I'm not really concerned one way or another, at least not until I see what they have actually done with the game :shrug:
Might be better, might be worse.

Yea I really don't see how you can get rid of Attributes. I was actually thinking you could totally replace the skill system with attribute checks , such as no need for a "climbing skill" when you can just test strength and agility, etc. But how you can have a functioning RPG without a metric to measure a character's given abilities is beyond me. I'm hoping it was just an oversight.

Except that the super strong character would be at a disadvantage, and the super agile one, if not very strong, would not make a good climber either.

*Though really... if you don't know how to climb, being strong and or agile is not really enough. (though its needed)

I wouldn't care too much if they weren't in(I doubt they'll be excluded however).

I wouldn't want certain races to be overly superior or inferior choices for certain play styles with no way to adjust/offset their relative capacity for spells, weapon damage, etc. though, as a few posters have suggested as a possibility.

I'm totally the opposite view here. In IMO the Human should be the most versatile, and any beast races should favor certain styles, and have certain special abilities... Otherwise what's the point? The PC might as well just be wearing a rubber suit. I would want the beast races to provide a noticeable and distinct difference to the experience of replaying the game using a different non-human PC.

**For that matter, IMO all of the human variants should (and do) have distinct advantages ~and disadvantages. (IE. reasons to bother choosing them, besides the merely cosmetic).

What bothers me most so far about Skyrim (based on what I've read), is the notion of the PC being the one super special person in the world able to do something... In this case learn Dragon Shouts.

i really dont care, because unlike their ability to honour pc graphic capabilities, they know how to make a skill system work well.

Its pretty obvious people, if attributes and classes arent in, then they have found a better system.

RPG with no strength, intelligence, etc.?

Inconceivable!

Attributes should stack on skills and racial bonuses.
for example, an Orc might get a higher Blunt (lets say in this case, the Orc will be using a mace to try and ruin someones armor),
by using a mace more often, that skill increases,
the level of Strength would then add or substract to the effect of trying to bash through some armor.

By keeping attributes, skills, and racial bonuses, we have much more variety in how they can be combined and affect our game behaviors.

Personally I would much prefer this then the Oblivion style system.

If they are included, I hope they are not raised like in traditional Elder Scrolls games. They should just raise the attributes automatically depending on what skills you raise.

They better be in the game, this is an RPG after all. If the attributes end up being removed then we can be sure that TES6 will be an FPS or something of the sort. :laugh: