We're arguing about a computer game, not the definition of saying. You have your opinion, others don't share it.

I love how console gamers are apparently simple minded zombies that don't possess enough intelligence to figure out how a stat system works.

Only if I can't demonstrate the cause and effect, and I can and did. Now if Bethesda kept the exact same system for 50 years and made one change and said it's a slippery slope you may have a point.

Except in this case there's measurable differences in the complexity of their game based right in the mathematics. Nice try though, you've got spirit I'll give you that. Granted this still doesn't mean I'm 100% correct and they will keep dumbing it down. This fallacy is more of a thing of degrees, but the evidence is in my favor at this point.

Edit
Also I do hope you know I was exaggerating a tad here and there (I hope). If the world kept sliding into nothing because of continuous dumbing down I would feel truly alone and empty.

I'm glad to see that most people in this thread so far are against the removal of attributes. Call me an old fart, but I agree absolutely with the poster above, who said that attributes were a staple of RPGs. It really does seem like dumbing down that they have been removed, and that's disappointing.

Stops reading after this and realizes he is trolling.


/thread.

My opinion is that:

1) many ppl wanted so badly to ALWAYS level +5/+5/+5 which required a COMPLICATED gameplay at cost of time and fun. Nobody wants to play with a notepad / excel sheet to record skill advancements that contribute to a +10 in attribute-related skills. As many mentioned, giving a simple fixed amount of 10 or other X would solve it even for powergamers.

2) it is simpler, in the sense that Beth now has fewer issues to address. In conversation, e.g., Personality played a role in the person's disposition to answer, so it was not only just your Speechcraft skill that impacted conversation results.

And yet for all the "dumbing down" of this system, think of how many people are thoughtfully "role playing" (read: playing a character with an established alignment--for lack of a better term--and using different skills and perks to achieve their goals) and think about the incredible amount of variety this "dumbed down" system still yields.

How was it unnecessary? It has been one of the core elements of TES series for as long as i can remember. Just because somthing can be changed and simplified, doesn't mean it should. Simplicity has its place when things become tediously annoying, not for the sake of making things less involving and complex.

True enough, but in this context it doesn't really matter if things progress down a slippery slope or not. The point is that, in theory at least, successive titles in a series should advance, adding more depth with eac title, not taking depth away.

I could not play Oblivion the way it was intended to be played because I had the attributes/leveling thing always in the back of my head.

I still don't see how it is dumbed down. You get the power from perks. So instead of strength increasing your dmg your perk does. Why is this dumbed down? Instead of paying attention to how you distribute stats you pay attention to how you spend perks. If oblivion just gave me 15 stats to spend i do not see how this creates anything more complicated. It's obvious where you would spend your points. The only thing difficult about it was the fact that you had to spend time leveling stupid skills that i was never going to use to make sure i got a maximum increase. If they just hand me points or hand me perks i don't see there being any difference in difficulty.

Why not have both? But make perks fewer, and more unique in application? Then you can easily add to strength to increase damage at every level and can add to perks to gain unique abilities that modify the stats/weapons/whatever. It's simple without losing any of its complexity. If you really want to simplify stats, give people a fixed amount to put into them at start up and never bother them again. You want to add more features to attract a larger audience, but at the same time they must be kept simple. There was no reason for stats to go, simplify and fix for sure. But get chopped down into such a lame trio of video gamey stats? It also breaks the immersion greatly.

They could have done NPCs this way rather than the other way and no one would ever have known.

So what case and point of Anti attribute peeps

I don't like it because I thought about them so much


But now I can RP even though my thought proccess and imagination has 0 effect on the game, but I don't care since I can do exactly what I want now, even though thats never changed since Daggerfall but because Attributes are gone, I can for some reason do it now.

That was more a flaw with Oblivion's terrible leveling system than anything, though, I think. Compare it to, say, Fallout 3 where it was XP based; it worked MUCH better there. I know the Elder Scrolls games have always been skill based for leveling, but there was room to fix what was wrong with the system as opposed to just axing the whole thing.

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I'm enjoying Skyrim, but leveling just doesn't seem to have the same 'oh, cool, I leveled' vibe anymore. I don't know if that's due to the lack of stat progression beyond Magicka/Health/Stamina or the lackluster perk system, though. I think that skills not having any noticeable effects on anything (that I've seen) might be a reason, too.

It's unnecessary by virtue of being achievable through simpler means.
Argument for tradition. Tradition is not necessity.
Doesn't mean it shouldn't, either.
Involving is a nice sounding word. It's also meaningless. Elegance is pretty nice sounding too. Complexity should never be a goal in itself.

The number one problem with complexity is that it's difficult to manage. They build interdependencies that complicate changes. Changes must inevitably happen and elegant systems make the outcomes, desireable and undesireable easier to predict, find, and account for. Complex systems run escalating budgets with each iteration as changes have cascading effects.

Agreed. That was part of the reason I got frustrated and would start over so many characters in prior TES games. Having to precisely control my leveling to max out a character made me more worried about the leveling process than playing the actual game. Of course I evwntually loosened up and stopped caring about maxing, but it was such a distraction initially that I never even finished the main quest line in Oblivion.

Wait a minute. Omitting a series of arbitrary numbers that you are forced to micromanage breaks immersion?

I had trouble alt-tabbing out of Oblivion to look at excel charts.

But I still find post-its with notes like "end -> 28, agi -> 32, dest -> 18 by level 8" on them. Very glad that system is gone.

Stats mearly serve to determine outcomes. The stats of old have given way to perks in many cases, with the same general outcome (granted some things have fallen by the wayside, such as item degredation, and I have no doubt mods will be made to reintroduce them). The only difference being that you see less numbers, the choices are still there albeit in different forms.
Early RPGs used numbers to convey outcomes of decisions or actions within a gaming world, since when did the numbers become the RPG element itself? Surely as the games advance as long as choice is still intact should we really be fixated on the loss of visible stats? Surely the aim of these games is to have fun?

I personally miss a few things but overall I am enjoying Skyrim a lot more than I did Oblivion, possibly moreso than Morrowind (despite the interface from hell - PC user here). I can't wait to see what wonders the modding community will bring to the table too down the road!

WHY IS THE REMOVAL OF STATS SIMPLIFICATION? If i just get handed 10 stat points and i'm a rogue i go and spend a minute thinking about where i want those points. If i get a perk i go spend a minute figuring out where i want that perk. What then becomes the difference? Having stats doesn't make the game more difficult in any way shape or form. I spend the exact same amount of time either way. Wasting time leveling skills i can't stand to use because i need to make sure i get the correct stat distribution ruins the point of the game. I'm not suppose to be worrying about hitting this mob that is attacking me because now i might level my 1handed skill and only get a +3 bonus. Oh no i better stop this dungeon mid dungeon because it's too long of a dungeon that i might level up and get the wrong stat distribution.

We get it, you take pride in your ability to apply cold logic to Internet arguments. Unfortunately there's a random variable at play in this discussion, that somewhat diminishes your argument. Humans are human, they all want different things and have very different opinions.

In fact, I accuse you of logical fallacy, arguing on the Internet!

Because everyone should start as a peasant and must all have the same physical attributes. Because skills are the same thing as physical attributes. And picking a profession for your character when you make him is for dumb people.

/Beth logic

You still have most of the options there. More magicka means your character is smarter. More stamina means you are stronger and faster. More health means you have more endurance. I'd much rather take a relatively minor shot to roleplaying than have to grind endurance to 100 at the start of the game

I will definately be adding SPECIAL stats with a mod because I miss its critical role-play element.