I was mystified by that, too. I often play dead-is-dead (also called ironman) in these games, and I don't see any difference. The Nerevarine becomes immune to disease and old age, but not to being killed.

That's just a matter of taste though isn't it. While I can clearly see how someone might want the game to work that way, and might want to be able to have full control over your stats like that, likewise you surely have to agree that it makes absolutely no sense that using lots and lots of destruction magic (or picking lots of locks, or tarding lots of treasure) would make you physically stronger.

What you think is brilliant because of the control it gives you, others will think is rubbish because it's utterly nonsensical and spoils playing a believable role.

I think that person was refering to Vivec's Sermons and some of the super 4th wall breaking things that they can be interpreted as refering too. I still don't really get the complaint, though. I don't think it'd make much sense to find Vivec's Sermons outside of Morrowind, and CHIM as a concept (not to mention other things like the Dragon Break) is refered to in other sources that I'm pretty sure can be found in Skyrim as well. That lore wasn't thrown out, it's still there and a part of the world.

@Ehra: (Your previous post)

I'm more than familiar with the points brought up in that article. Really doesn't change my opinion.

Let's say that in their approach for TES VI, Bethesda decides that cranking the graphics up to 11 just isn't necessary. Let's say they decide that where they're at now in that department will be good enough by the time they're ready to release the game. In all likelihood, a game that's as pretty as Skyrim but with a nature all its own will be marketable to Bethesda's crowd for many years to come.

Now let's say they also decide to tackle Summerset Isle next, an area roughly the same size as the one they went with for TES III. Absent of the burden of pushing the graphics to the limit, in addition to the sharp drop in surface area from the last game, Bethesda should have a bit easier time filling that in-game world with more stuff than they normally would. Are they going to get twice as much content as Skyrim had? No. But more is certainly welcome, and possible.

If they also decided not to jack around too much with the path they've laid down with Skyrim in terms of gameplay changes, Bethesda would further have less work to do in that area, making them even more free to build some good dungeons or deepen a few quests that may be lacking.

I'd disagree with that. Though it's not necessarily in dungeons that you'll find interesting things, but exploring the world often does reward you with finding interesting things and places. This is something that they improved on from Oblivion. You really have to go off the beaten path to find this stuff sometimes.

Raise Skill X to improve Attribute Y, which improves Skill X. It was a completely unnecessary feedback loop, hampered further by the fact that you could increase attributes you never actually used (which is antithetical to TES's skill progression paradigm). In Skyrim you at least need to use a skill and get it high enough to select perks within the tree (e.g., no getting smithing perks without actually using your smithing skill). They would've had to really re-conceptualize attributes to make them sensible, but they didn't feel the development time was worth it with everything else taken into consideration.

I am similarly disappointed with the pace of the questlines (at least, the ones I've played so far). In fact, I had almost the exact experience / feelings with regard to the Companions. I was so turned off by that plot-line that I haven't been back to see them since they attempted to indoctrinate me into their circle. The icing on the cake was that I had to 'roleplay' (pretend) a response that wasn't actually available to me in the dialogue.

As for the dragons, I think that Beth kind of missed the mark here as well. I don't have a problem that they were introduced so early, but I do have a problem that one could even think about fighting a dragon (and winning) even before reaching level 10. Personally, I think that dragons should have been made powerful enough that it would be suicide to do anything besides run and hide for the first 20 levels or so. I believe I understand why they didn't make dragons such a monumental challenge, but it doesn't mean I like the decision any better.

I dont really care. They are all diffrent games. so let them be diffrent. And im perfectly fine going back to DF if i want that feeling again.

So, according to you, as long as Beth keeps a sandbox world and 'freeform' character development that implements an 'open-ended' skill system, their formula will continue to work just fine, right? So, you wouldn't be bothered in the least if they changed the mechanics to be similar to Dragon Age or Fable in TES VI?

I know I would.

Its not that I'm against change, either. Its simply because I expect some consistencies, particularly within the context of the gameworld, when I buy a game that is part of a series. Do the games seem too similar because they are all open-world, or because they all use a 'gain-experience-by-practice' leveling system? I don't happen to think so. Why is it that they would all be the 'same game' if they used mechanics that were consistent with past games, but refined between each iteration?

What makes EA games like Madden all too similar is the fact that they are all football games that share all the same environments with all the same players (for the most part) and a relatively limited way in which to approach the desired outcome (among other things). TES, on the other hand, always has new environments to explore, new characters to 'meet', new lore to learn, new items to experiment with, new quests to do... etc., so I don't agree with the argument that if there were consistencies in other areas of the gameworld (i.e. mechanics) then it would just be a 2.0 version of some previous title in the series.

Except the "skill" systems in Dragon Age and Fable are completely different from what's in Elder Scrolls, which means at that point they'd be making entirely different types of games. You increase your character and your skills simply by using them. Dragon Age and Fable make you earn experience by killing things which either makes you level up then you get to purchase new abilities, or in Fable where you earn enough points to purchase a new ability. They're nothing alike, and making that comparison is just a faulty slippery slope argument.


That's not what I said. What I have, in fact, said is that Skyrim's system is a refinement of the past games' mechanics. It keeps the same general idea from the last games; you improve your skills by using them, you level up by improving your skills, leveling up lets you increase your stats, and you're not forced to stick to any specific skills, you can use whatever skills you feel fits your character. It also does this while making enough changes to the system that it still feels fresh, such as adding perks.

I've been most everywhere in Skyrim at this point. There really hasn't been much that was at all interesting.


You can argue unnecessary, but thats only because attributes were never fleshed out like they should have been. Fallout 3 did this, but then they decided not to even roll with that sort of system. Skills are supposed to govern your characters direct interactions with the world and how things pan out. Attributes do this as well, though in a different way from skills. Think skills as direct, attributes as indirect. Someone with a lot of strength but little skill could do some damage with a sword just the same as someone with a lot of skill but little strength could do with a sword. Attributes are the backbone of skills, that give them actual power (instead of just being pulled out of the characters rear-end) and in order to gain these attributes you have to push forward with skills, which are your direct interactions with the world beyond basic things that aren't so deep as to require a skill (such as eating or simple movement).

What attributes should ALSO do however is govern those things that skills don't have to or won't be able to cover. Things like being able to lift that heavy board off the door or pull that rusty lever. Things like being able to outwit another character in speech or intelligence (by way of accessing reply options otherwise not accessible). They should govern how people see you without ever speaking with you or fighting you. LUCK, nuff said. They should be able to govern your ability to break out of spells (like paralysis or something similarly detrimental such as a drain strength spell) through sheer willpower. If we want to throw in more hardcoe elements, endurance should have massive effects on determining your ability to survive across the board, from resisting a cold winter night to dealing with your stab wounds. And so on and so forth.

If the system was fleshed out like that, we would all be saying that attributes compliment skills and vice versa, and only overlap in one area of their function.


Thats the thing, Beth is moving toward scrapping the "learn by using" system. They've already gotten rid of a lot of skills since Daggerfall (where only a few skills were actually redundant or made no sense, such as Thamaturgy and the language skills), attributes have been scrapped as a whole, and with perks being the way they are its only a short step (by way of scrapping skills, a lot of the functions of which have been funneled into perks) until we have a system like Diablo II sans attributes except for health, magicka, and stamina.


Its not a refinement. Its just a butchering. They aren't refining mechanics, they're removing them altogether, and with no proof that they were so forgone as mechanics that could justify them being removed.

And perks are not even fresh. The concept is, but in actuality the perk system just tries to replace attributes while in the meantime taking out a lot of the functions of skills.

I suppose it depends on what you find interesting, I guess.
These are just a few things I've run across, without any pushing from the game, by just walking around and seeing what's out there. And I don't do as much exploring as I should.

As I said, the attribute system would have to be re-conceptualized. In Morrowind and Oblivion, it's primary goal was to help boost your skills, and provide minor secondary effects. What you describe would require reworking the attributes to make the effects primary and much more noticeable, while dropping or limiting their feedback into the skills.

As far as the games have been concerned, increasing your one-handed skill would have the same effect on one-handed weapons as increasing strength. They both cause you to do more damage with one-handed weapons. There's no need for multiple things to control the same stat like that.

Personally, if I were to do it, I'd drop how the attributes boost your skills, and just leave secondary effects like increasing carrying capacity, chance for breaking timed spell effects, open more dialog options relating to world history/lore, etc, and have attributes raise in a GCD-like fashion (raising skills will automatically raise their governing attributes). I can understand why Bethesda didn't do this though, because it would've cost more development time that they couldn't spare, with everything else they were working on. The previous system was broken, IMO, and the current way is nicer than how it was.

nah its not as black and white as that. My example was to show the stark contrast in the system in DF vs the following games systems. really though, it isnt a stretch to think that training in swordplay could alter STR., but it might have also been technique training to make wielding the sword easier, thus allowing for more END., or learning how to dodge your foe's swings, thus raising AGI. or reading the history of sword play different culture's style etc, making you wiser, etc. maybe your destruction training was learning how to focus magicka more easily so it wasnt as physically draining. Or maybe how to focus more magicka at once, shown through INT stat. maybe it was training in recognizing your foe's casting timing, so you could dodge that firebolt, AGI. Maybe my character is a fully armored heavy armor/claymore wielding battlemage, and casting magicka while burdened down so much made my character stronger.

It isnt hard to rationalize most any stat increase by simply role playing the character. Removing these attributes makes the characters in Skyrim much more difficult to tweak into a unique play. For instance, Khajiit are known to be fast, agile, accrobatic, etc. how is this shown in Skyrim? my 300 lb Conan Nord runs EXACTLY the same speed as my 160 lb Khajiit thief. There is no way in my control to alter that either. No athletics or accrobatics skills, no speed stat. There are a host of other examples of this, and others have made comments in this thread on the same line. IMO the only reason to choose one race over another in Skyrim is you want to look different, RP reasons because of the story, or you like the race power like Orc berserk. The skill bonus attached to them are trivial at best when you consider how easy it is to raise a skill from 15 to 20, or even 10 to 20. Without haveing the attribute bonuses to go along with the skill bonuses, the whole idea falls flat. The only one that really works is the Altmer with the 50 point magicka bonus because hey! its a backdoor Attribute bonus.

I have enjoyed skyrim anyway. but skyrim is also much less compelling to me to make a dozen or more different characters to replay the game. I made a less focused warrior/mage, a focused fighter, a focused mage, and a stealthy archer type character. that pretty much covers all the bases in Skyrim. I chose Altmer for the mage for magicka points. The rest I could have picked whatever I want because by lvl 7 it wouldnt have mattered at all as the skills would have evened out by then. Some may see this as "moving forward" or some other good thing as it "prevents people from gimping themselves". I say hogwash, I think Skyrim took a baby step forward with a few things like smithing and removing "autopick" buttons from locks, but then took a big fat jump backwards by reducing my character customization so much. That is in relation to character mechanics anyway, the visuals and story etc are a whole different area of the game and deserve praise for the most part- thats why i have so many hours pluncked into the game

The previous system was the begining of the slippery slope that resulted in the current system. the previous previous system found in daggerfall worked out quite well. It had it's little areas of bloating, and a few minor oversights in how skills advanced and such, but 95% of it was very good.

The more I think about it, the more I tend to think the attributes being junked and the skills being pruned had to do with removing processor load from all the background calculations so that the poor wimpy console hardware could keep up with all the action going on. Then again I might be way off base there, and thinking there is some actual logical cause/effect going here, and not just a simple "marketing survey shows Xbox players like this!!" because giant Xbox sales =giant $$. not that i can fault anyone for that either

Stop trying to insult Xbox players. I'm one now, despite being a PC player until my last computer blew up. There really is no real difference between the demographics beyond the hardware available.

However... I've not found any attribute systems to work "Well". Maybe they'll be in a future TES game, but they really don't fit into Skyrim's leveling. I like the new Perks + Magicka/Hitpoints/Stamina trio.

Skills reflect what you've learned this level "Attributes" reflect where you want your character to go. Having the choices on-level-up be made with foresight instead of in hindsight (As Morrowind and Oblivion's were) takes the fun out of the DING!

Also, no two RPGs can agree on what the Attributes should be. Fallout's system is just as flawed as any other game's.I don't think he found any of that because the game doesn't expressly hold his hand and lead him too it

Actually, the poster wasn't insulting xbox players at all. The point being made was that behind-the scenes complexity may be cut to reduce the processor load on the consoles, which are definitely weaker than today's gaming PCs.

I don't see what the significant difference would be on hardware strain between your character's abilities being defined by skills + perks vs skills + attributes. Attributes weren't a complex system "behind-the scenes," they're static values that modify your affectiveness in various ways.

The most plausible reason for why attributes were removed has been mentioned time and time again. Some people are convinced that gaming just so happened to be at its best when X game from their own past came out and they can't accept that there could actually be a legitimate reason for a system they enjoyed to be changed. Or they simply haven't yet realized that achnowledging there are legitimate reasons for changing a system doesn't suddenly mean the old system you enjoyed is objectively worse. Despite my defense of Skyrim, I still *gasp!* enjoy playing Morrowind more for various reasons. I've just reached a point in my life where I'm secure enough in my beliefs to realize that just because I prefer one thing doesn't mean the other is bad or that there isn't good, solid, justified reasoning behind it.

Not how it works, or at least not how it should work. Skills increase accuracy and efficiency. Attributes increase the raw power behind those skills. Very different. Its a difference between being able to hit the target with high skill and being able to do a lot of damage versus the target with high strength.



Which is shenanigans, because they spent the time to create marriage mechanics and other useless little things.

ome people are convinced that gaming just so happened to be at its best when X game from their own past came out that they can't accept that there could actually be a legitimate reason for a system they enjoyed to be changed.

Changing =/= Removal.

They didn't remove all forms of character advancement and measurment of character power. They just changed the methods.

Right, it's not how it should work. Attributes should affect how you play, but shouldn't directly affect your skills. Your skill levels should affect your skill proficiency. Unfortunately this is the trap Morrowind and Oblivion fell into.

Implying marriage is useless. Sure it's not that deep or fleshed out, but it adds a nice touch to role playing if you handle it right. And once mods kick in, they'll really be able to improve the feature.

I knew someone who had 3 XBOX consoles break on him before getting a 4th. He clearly saw the need to buy the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th machine despite the repeated misfortune. He wanted something in the console badly enough to not give up. What you said makes me wonder how much of a "PC player" you were.


I'm wondering why you picked Eldagore's second, weaker, post instead of the earlier one directly above. He laid out a detailed example of why he thinks the Skyrim system is flawed, but you saw fit to address only his remark on console hardware and demographics. I think it is counterintuitive that a muscular warrior nord cannot run any faster than a lanky, fragile elf wizard.



I think the root problem might be the fact that Attributes are easily mutable during the "learn by use" gameplay. Remember how hard it is to raise SPECIAL in Fallout 3? You could only expect to raise each SPECIAL once, that's it. What you chose at the start of the game had far-reaching consequences for the rest of the game. By contrast, the entire TES series lets you raise attributes as you leveled up. Arena and Daggerfall let you pick whatever attributes you pleased. Morrowind and Oblivion placed restrictions: you could only raise attributes of skills you used, and how much you used those skills. In this sense, the "learn by use" mantra of Daggerfall became mandatory in the succeeding two games.


Here it is, I think this is a good summation of the issue. Bethesda made no attempt to overhaul it. These are probably the sorts of opinions floating around about how a skill interacts with an attribute:

• Swinging a sword so many times should make someone physically stronger
  
• Swinging a sword so many times should not make someone physically stronger
  
• Swinging a sword so many times should make someone improve in any capacity at all, even if he only gets smarter

I think what was frustrating with Morrowind and Oblivion is that swinging a sword had a limit to how much a person got physically stronger at every level up.
"Ugh, I have to swing this sword xx amount of times but not more than yy amount of times!"
Isn't this what people complain about?

Skyrim still arbitrarily staggers the "learn by use" philosophy. The difference in damage between level 100 and level 10 in One-Handed has nowhere near as much an effect as buying the damage perks in those trees. The skill by itself is just a maximum +50%, while perks exceed +100%. You still practice the skill, but never truly get better at it from practice. Instead you just brighten a magic star to instantly make you hurt someone 20% more with your axe. This isn't any more natural than raising Strength by 5 points in a menu, like in Daggerfall. You spend 1 perk point, and 1 attribute point, at level up in Skyrim like you spend 6 points per level up in Daggerfall. You can spend that 1 perk point on any skill, and 1 attribute point on any attribute point, just like you can spend 6 points on any attribute in Daggerfall.

Here's my suggestion. Rather than a per-level restriction, instead have it so that after swinging a sword so many times in total, my physical strength will not rise. Ever notice how in weight-training, you need to increase the weight rather than reptitions if you want become stronger? Wielding a warhammer would make you stronger than wielding a sword, up to a point.

How about in order to get the really high damage increase, your character has to actually prove himself for it, like a test or trial. Bear with me here, once you accomplish this trial, you've reached an achievement, that now you have some sort of boon, like a perk, that you can now do when you couldn't before. If only such a thing existed...

Oh right, Fallout New Vegas did that already. When you slew enough radscorpions and deathclaws, you directly became better at killing them.

Which is stupid - Someone skilled with a weapon should be able to do a lot more damage per strike they land than someone unskilled with the weapon. It's the difference between hacking vainly against the Ribcage and severing every major artery in the body. Furthermore, they should also hit more often - Essentially, the impact the "underlying" attributes have on skill is so small as to not even be worth tracking, while the parts of the attributes that ARE worth tracking are completely intertwined and inseperable with the skill, so eliminating attributes is just cutting out a meaningless middleman.


I had a PC. I played games on it. Ergo, I was a PC gamer. I am now an Xbox gamer, because my PC died, but my younger brother has an Xbox. I get a hardware upgrade about once every six years.



Want to know another game that's like that to an even greater degree? Fable III. And that game proves how [censored] the system is by making it too damn difficult for the player to notice and direct it properly. Skyrim's perk system is FAR superior to the grindwheel you suggested.

Also, the difference between the way TES and Fallout handle attributes is significant- With Fallout, you get to choose where your attributes start, and the average ins 50% (60% if you're "Gifted"). In TES, it's a function of your race, and the average isn't even 40%. Yes, the mutability IS part of the problem. However, I don't see the difference between scrapping attributes altogether compared to completely overhauling the entire system - which is what they actually did.

So, instead of fixing the problem caused by excessive Attribute increases in Morrowind, or the changed game mechanics in Oblivion making several of the Attributes pointless (because the mini-games all but ignored both the skill and the related attribute), they scrapped the system entirely in Skyrim to add Perks which too often either "trump" the related skill (where you get far more benefit from the perk than by maxing out the skill), do only a fraction of what Attributes used to (by increasing carrying capacity, hitpoints, and magicka), or do annoyingly stupid and "gamey" things to please "arcade" action players, no matter how unimmersive it is for RP.

I think FO and the Bethesda-made and non-Bethesda sequels did one thing very right, by making Attributes nearly static. A couple of mods for Morrowind and Oblivion used skill increases to raise MULTIPLE attributes on the fly by various amounts, so you raised your Skills and ALL related Attributes by actually "doing", without leaving each Attribute totally dependent on only a couple of skills which your character might or might not use. I think that Daggerfall and Morrowind used Attributes more for what they were intended to be, but then stuck a stupid "multiplier" system on top to limit increases in them in Morrowind (the idea behind it was good, the execution was terrible), which Oblivion failed to correct while also rendering character stats less meaningful overall.

At that point, Skyrim simply cleared the debris and went with a whole new Perk system that was equally unbalanced and poorly thought out. Unfortunately for RP players, the Perks work well enough for purely Action play that many of the more recent gamers don't even understand WHY someone would want the character diversity and focus that Attributes used to do, since the point nowadays seems to be to "powergame" to get the "achievements" instead of exploring and just enjoying the game by "being" a character that is uniquely "not you". If I just wanted to "play me" in a mundane "pseudo-medieval" setting, I'd get back into SCA and bash opponents with rattan swords again.

What are you going on about? Arcades have been dead since the 90's.

I don't think the static atributes would work for TES. I mean who want's a totally static character. Daggerfall and Morrowind did quite well an the multiplier system could have been changed so that you only add one point of your choice per level and the rest come from skills or by simply raising attributes exactly like skills. There are good and bad bits about all three methods but they offer something while Skyrim offers nothing.



Perks can work well in RPGs. Or rather perks that are well designed and balanced can work well in RPGs by complementing attributes and skills. A pity that in Skyrim there aren't any attributes, the skills are nerfed an the perks are anyhing but well designed.

Well, sort of static, maybe. In the original non-Beth Fallout games you could get a boost from some gear, like Power Armor, and there was a way to pay a hefty price to increase a stat. But it was hard to change those stats very much.

Beth made it much easier to raise Attributes, by throwing in a lot of gear that did it, by adding in the bobble-heads, and by adding a perk that allowed you to raise one every time you level.

Bethesda has a history of fixing things that aren't broken.