I don't understand why the attributes system has to be equated with mindless power-levelling and statwhoring. The only reason people had to do that was to stay ahead of the rat-race that was Oblivion's horrific level scaling system. There were no complaints about them in Daggerfall or Morrowind. I don't think Skyrim is any less of an RPG, but levelling in and of itself no longer feels as intrinsically rewarding as before. Now I only level so that I can suddenly, arbitrarily, gain new abilities (perks) - but there's no real ongoing history behind my character's development. It probably doesn't make much sense to most people, but I feel as though with each TES game it becomes successively harder to appreciate just how far your character has come - simply because there's less checks in the game world against your character now.

Have you tried smithing or enchanting? Both in conjunction? You're a demi-god for cripes sake.

You had to really go against the idea of your character to screw your guy up in Morrowind and Oblivion. Instead of scrapping stats, they should've weighed them more heavily, I think. But whatever, it's clear I'm in a minority in that I'd like this game to be different from an action title. I'll just accept it and eventually stop playing them when they're indistinguishable from their early incarnations.

I hear your argument... But how is it less arbitrary to gain a level up by practicing your sneaking... To end up raising your strength... Not to mention how is not arbitrary that suddenly by some divine powers you got stronger / faster / luckier!!! (that's even more nonsense). How is getting +x strength after 10 skills level up is less arbitrary then gaining +20% damage on your 1h skill after 10+ skills level ups?

No.

There are pros and cons to both systems.

Personally I LOVED leveling the perfect character in Oblivion, even if it meant sticking to a very strict guideline. It was rewarding at the end of it and gave replay value to the game.

The only problem with it, really is Bethesda's crappy scaling system. Not that scaling is bad, but Bethesda did it horribly in Oblivion.

In Skyrim it feels like you have no control over leveling, besides simply not doing an action that levels a skill that you don't want to affect your level. That means no sneaking, no pickpocketing, no magic and no speechcraft for my warrior. In Oblivion you could have it ALL, as long as you leveled correctly.

No Acrobatics?

D:

Ok so you prefer what TES is becoming? You acknowledge what it once was though? So you should be able to see why older players are unhappy with Bethesda's direction. That's not to say you're not an older player, you might just prefer the narrative. I don't, and nor does Gamgee by the sounds of it.

Ideally I'd want the best of both worlds, but not at the cost of reduced complexity.

Careful saying those things dude! People will actually start to believe it.

and what is TES becoming?

I never got the answer how is Skyrim any less without attributes. What would they give that we don't already have?

I played the game, and honestly, I haven't even noticed their absence. Skills always mattered more, they were always better to describe your character.
And this still gives you a multitude of choices, your character's capabilities are still limited.

And how is the character development more limited? Haven't your sneak skill raised often even surprassed your class skills if you sneaked a lot? This basically forced you to pick skills you WON'T use so you'll be well above your level, otherwise... Ever picked athletics and acrobatics as class skills in Morrowind?

So how is this any different and are there any other reason to add back attributes other than they sounded good or something?

Fully agree with you mate. I know this can look rude to say, but IMO it looks that game industries just make games for stupids this days, because each new one always is more simplified then the older one. Using the brain is something from the past i must say...!

Take for exemple, and just talking about TES saga,,,we used to be able to master each wepon,,,like mace, axe, sword,,,etc....(What IMO makes all the sence, because a master of the mace can't be expected to use a dagger or a sword with the same perfection), In oblivion some of them was blended ( and blended in a very bad way)....and now we just have 1H or 2H expertise, i bet next game we will just have a unique skill called "Wepons" where all including the bows will be blended!
In a future game maybe even that "wepons" will change to a skill called: "Things that hurt"!...who knows?...
As i used to say, one day we will be living in caves again, because we are giving up to use our brains more and more

Although i think Skyrim IS a great game, and is one of the best games we can have in this modern days.

Just don't acept this stupid agenda from the game industries to make people more "stupid" then what we are already! Be forced to use the brains is not bad, is something very very good!!

Lol next could be just magic attack & melee attack .... and be called Call of scrolls ...

Or scrolls of duty VI...

lol...exelent!

Who knows mate, i just believe in anything this days!

I love it the new way. I hated having to implement points into stats perfectly, a game shouldn't feel like work. The old system was for the old days, game are dynamic and more realistic now. Selecting your own stat points, in my opinion, was always stupid, clunky, and plain annoying, I am really happy it's gone.

If we were playing dungeons and dragons in the 70's in someone's basemants than stat sheets and spread sheets were necessary, but we got computers now folks!!!

Missed the point. There was a huge difference between a power-leveled character (+5/+5/+5) and one that didn't do that in Oblivion by level 30. In fact the player was penalized for not power leveling in Oblivion. In Skyrim you can play however you wish and not worry about it biting you in the butt 20 levels later. If you want to focus your early leveling in just 2-4 skills at the start you can. If you want to spread things out across a wider range of skills you can. Either way the game isn't going to punish you for playing a particular way.

Only problem with smithing is it's too easy to reach 100 quickly by just spaming low value items.

Others have explained it in this very thread, far more eloquently than I could. You spent hours arguing with Gamgee fgs! If you're utterly convinced that we're wrong then you're too set in your ways to appreciate or even listen to our opinions. I guess that's your prerogative. I'm not going to like the changes in Skyrim because you do dude.

An anology for you. Motor engineers have a passion for understanding how an internal combustion engine works. A driver just wants to drive the car. Both extract their entertainment/satisfaction from the same product...

Well, honestly, free stat distribution at each levelup (like, you get 10 stat points, you cant put more then 5 into 1 stat) would be better then total removal of stats. I miss em ((
Also, for such things as endurance, they could it make it like in NWN - you don't need to max out endurance early to get maximum HPs. Once you increase endurance, all your HPs are getting recalculated.
Would be way better, IMHO.

I feel sad for people saying they love stats are gone so they can't powergame, I mean c'mon its like saying "I love loosing my freedom so I cant do no harm"
And it was completely unnecessary to achieve perfect leveling to be successful in any other TES.

Many of you are missing the fact that stats are more than numbers, for instance speed made you faster! thats right! and charisma made people like you more, like strenght abled you to carry more.
Now a woodelf girl is almost the same as a nord barbarian if you play them with the same style, isn't it odd?

I agree completly bad decision this is an RPG i want my stats page and picture .

Yeah they sure killed power gaming.

I guess one shotting everything in the game because you found a loophole in the enchanting/alchemy/smithing skills doesn't count as power gaming.

But yeah, removal of attributes is kind of lame.

If people want to powergame because that's how they build their character then they should. This isn't an MMO.



Anyways to add in my 2cents:


I've been playing Elder Scrolls since Morrowind and I've never been one of those people who had to use an spreadsheet to figure out to level my character(I didn't know people actually did that) nor did I care too. I still was able to enjoy the game and noticed that my character was progressing. I wasn't really competing against anything so there was no real reason to be so meticulous. In Oblivion I had no incentive to level up since everything scaled with me so I didn't notice the problem that other people had with it. The removal in stats in Skyrim on the otherhand does sort of bother me since it really does make everything seem dependent on perks. I'm currently leveling up one handed for my spellsword, but I'm not doing in perks for it since I don't want to focus on it yet I'm halfway to 100 and still haven't noticed any difference from when it was 20. In Morrowind there was a noticeable difference when I leveled my shortsword(or longsword) from 20 to 50 to 70 to 100. Add in whatever bonuses that you get from choosing to add points in strength and the difference was even more profound.

I don't mind perks, but I hope in the next game they make your character less reliant on them and strike a balance between them and the traditional stats that have always been in Elder Scrolls games. Maybe even modifying the attributes so that players don't have to make huge sacrifices when leveling up such as letting both willpower and intellect raise magicka and letting players choose up to 4 in a ordinal manner with diminishing returns depending on the players preference.

And I have to agree with whoever said that it makes no sense that a character wearing heavy armor is just as well off as a character wearing light armor or none at all. It makes no sense and the latter shouldn't have to rely on magical items to give him an edge when a character of that type would presumably be want to be able to have a lot of agility for running at higher speeds.

I also forgot to add that it now feels like im only leveling up to get perks which makes it feel more like an action game than a rpg.

Attributes came from pen and paper RPGs. They only appeared in video game RPGs because that was the most effective way to code the game. Everything was basically point and click then. Now days games have advances so much and are able to do far more then older games, the old way of doing things is no longer necessary.

To say that modern RPGs are more action oriented is true, and I can understand why. As somone who has played P&P games like Dungeons and Dragons, I can say that I for one wished to see my characters realized in a visual form that I could control. That is what modern RPGs are doing.

They took it out because like 95% of what attributes did was to increase your carry weight, stamina, health, or magicka. Now you just directly increase those. It's much more straightforward, and no longer redundant. I agree entirely with what they did. However, in Fallout SPECIAL remains unique, because each one has to do with an indevidual set of skills that it effects, as well as stats like your ability to detect enemies. Those couldn't be simplified into 3 stats. They simply couldn't. They have a purpose, attributes did not.

Unbearably arrogant post, which I say as a exclusively PC gamer.

Min/maxing requires no brain to do and totally removes any need to think strategically in the game play.

This way a good change. Go Bethesda for pushing the ball forward and breaking the mold.