In some interviews Todd Howard made some offhand comments about attributes not beign nececsary and this was the main reasoning behind their removal in Skyrim. While I like the removal myself the logic behind it was kind of lost to me, but watching my cousin play Dragon Age I noticed that in the "modern" games you get a chance to improve your atributes, but outside of a few examples (Demon Souls is the best implementation I remeber) you mostly pool the points into the most necesary atributes for your char and forget about the rest....I mean in Dragon Age if you play a Mage why would you waste points on strength? or if you are a fighter why would you use points for inteligence? Other than for roleplaying purposes on extra dialogue options or skill checks there was no good reason

While Demon Souls makes a great case on focusing on your main character′s attribute it does raise a few good uses for all attributes and for you to level them up a bit; even if you are playing a knight you need some dex for using a spear or a bow for example.

The current method for Skyrim seems to streamline that too, in the hope that you wont screw up a char by choosing to raise the wrong attributes they made things much more simple; you plan on getting hit a lot? You want to use magic? You plan of using a bow or many fancy power attacks?
I know it was not the most popular decision for the purists, but seems to me it was the most anti screwup tactic, both for new players and for more experienced gamers who regardless of their whinning mostly focused on a few stats vital to their charactaer...

I guess that is why they removed spellamaking to, because other than exploting it how many players acualy used it....?

But that is for another discussion

A lot of people like attributes, and a lot of people liked spell making. I can see them bringing spellmaking back in a DLC though.

Are attributes necessary? Absolutely not - in a lot of cases those artificial numbers are a crutch. I understand the appeal, I really do, but I think Skyrim did just fine without them.

We still have Strength / Intelligence / Endurance (Stamina / Magicka / Health). Luck is gone, and was fairly worthless to begin with. Personality is gone, but somewhat made up in the Speech tree. Willpower has been replaced with the majicka regen perks/enchantments. Speed is no longer needed with the sprint button. Agility is the only one truly gone and missed in my opinion.

The biggest thing I see with it is you ahve less definition on your character.

for example, in skyrim fatigue allows you to carry more.....does that mean fatigue is your strength? Or is it more realted to health since that what most warriors would often focus on.......

It also means for theif characters they can carry heaps since more of their points go into fagtiue. Does that make my thief character physically stronger then my warrior character that hefts around a battleaxe?


Same thing for magicka, is that a good measure for intelligence? of course not, its just a measure of magic strength, not intelligence.


I feel these sorts of attributes are so ingrained into the RPG genre its going to be really hard to make people feel at ease when you remove them.

That's 3 big ones right there. In other systems, a higher attribute would unlock other perks/feats.

Precisely. The skill system for Skyrim seems incredibly intuitive to me, which is probably what Bethesda was going for.

Luck was worthless? Tell that to Gaenor.

Given your logic, agility is not gone, just merged with the light armor perk (ability to dodge attacks). However, I would disagree. They are all just gone.