Strenght, Speed, Endurance, Wisdom, Intelligence, were they really so hard to comprehend? I mean why on earth remove the stats system and deprive of people having the "fast and agile character" or the strong and tough warrior..

I mean this system has always been there and worked great, they simplified it amazingly in fallout with the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. set, and indeed made your character feel special, as you could max out one attribute and leave othe lacking, adding up to the customization in the game.
I know beth wants to simplify things for console players, but this is totally compatible with console and has been made so before in oblivion and fallout.

Personally I want the special system back into skyrim, does anyone feel the same?

To kill power gaming, and it mostly succeeded.

I do wish there was abit more variation in each races starting Magicka/Health/Stamia levels.

It's not about being hard to comprehend. It was simply unnecessary. You can still be fast and agile or tough and strong. It's gotten to a point where system complication only serves to justify itself. It's lost touch with the purpose it was to serve.

It's good to step back and see what the point of it was and figure out if maybe it doesn't need all the extra bits for the same effect.

Elegance should be an objective. Not the enemy.

Nope. Bethesda removing attributes from their Elder Scrolls game was the best thing they ever did. No longer do I have to jump through hoops in order to level my endurance at the start of them game, so as not to be gimped at higher levels.

I agree.

A staple of every RPG game is that stats page, when you can see a PICTURE of your own character, and check out your in-game statistics (versus action statistics). I have no idea why Skyrim did away with this, especially since it aspires to be exactly that classic RPG.

It's one of my very few complaints about the game.

I LOVE the new system.

It's incredibly simple in theory, incredibly challenging in practice. It takes real thought to successfully build a good character now.

To be fair, that was a design flaw with Oblivion's levelling system. The attributes themselves worked fine.Take out the levelling bug by simply giving people attribute points to freely distribute at level up = fixed.

I say good riddance. So long to my Excel spreadsheets to make sure I don't miss any +5 stats on level up...

Because they wanted to put the G back into RPG, they dont want people to fret of numbers and just enjoy the game, experience the world. I dont see how tacking on numbers contributes to roleplaying, thats like saying Create-a-star in Madden is an rpg because you increase attributes there too.

I'm still 'wait and see' on the removal of stats. I'm at level 16, mainly dual-wield 1H weapons, some magic, some lockpick. I'm starting to feel I don't miss the stats as much as I thought I would.

From a technical aspect, the processor only has to calculate 3 basic stats for thousands of active npc's and mobs running around now, instead of 8, so I'm sure lightening the load on the CPU factored into the equation somewhere.

A variant of it would be nice, it just feels so incomplete as it is now with the lack of any stats. Perks are only half a third of the picture, skills another. We're missing the final piece some stats. It's too video gamey to level up health, magicka, or stamina like we're in some... video game. As opposed to a role playing game. It's very distracting.

Might
Intellect
Resolve (ties into both might and intellect)
Charisma (Which is seriously lacking and hindering the games bizarre persuasion system)
Fate (all purpose stat)

Edit
I hate people who say things are unnecessary in an RPG. You need a level of complexity to have an RPG, it sets the game apart. The less charts, and numbers the less of a game. You can always be a role, but not often d you get to choose to make a role. I find that the series is continuously pushing away from this and each game is forcing more and more of a default personality upon people. It won't be long now until they start to focus test and no one plays the other races so you have to be a human in the next game. And mages focus tested poorly so they get the nerf bat even more. Then pretty soon they're down to some key abilities you use during the combat sequences of the game (every sequence). At some point you need to stop cutting and hacking or you move from role playing game into hack and slash/shooter role playing game. I present to you the evidence of Bioware as a company, and Mass Effect as a series. They don't sell games where you play as what you want anymore. They sell interactive movies with great choice and shooter mechanics.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." As Einstein said.

I am not missing stats as much as I thought, but I would like a bit more random variety in my character. I like to know that I'm smarter than other people (or stronger or whatever). When it comes to brawling... I really don't know what makes the difference there. If I don't have strength, what goes into that?

I think its more physical skill of the player with Brawling, timing and use of power attacks.

"I know beth wants to simplify things for console players"

You obviously don't know anything about anything.

It seem more and more RPGs are parting away from the D&D system. I for one, welcome the change, it's simpler to understamd, easier to balance, and more challenging. You don't NEED stats system for customization, there are countless way to get it done. Perk seem to be the one Bathesda chose to go with.

I could not agree more !! This is the one thing i immediatley noticed and was not happy about it.

(and all the missing informative action bars)

They could have made magic cooler. Instead 5 second cast time, constant interruption, you could have extra intelligent focus blast n such.

Fallout was way better than this xD But this game is more like 'wtf do I do' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5ogOH82Aw

As an example of simplifying things, but not making it simpler here we go.

Instead of reducing the stats change how they are leveled up. Whenever you gain a level you simply invest 10 (or whatever number is balanced) into the stats you want. This way it's simple, you don't need to go out of your way to level the stats you want but it allows for greater complexity in a simple way. Instead they cut, and hacked the stats into only three. Simple math indicates that this is in fact less to work with, so a simpler and dumbed down system. You can't argue with basic math. Instead of trying to fix and simplify the existing stats so players "get it" they instead removed stuff until it was at a level more people could understand. Simply terrible, one of the few complaints I have with the game. I have mild anxiety over Fallout 4 and their design philosophy.

Thank god they got rid of stats. Unless they changed the way leveling up worked because Oblivion was terrible. Such a stupid system they had in oblivion. You had to waste so much stupid time worrying about leveling properly if you didn't want to get overpowered later in the game. I love this new system it lets me just play the game. It lets me immerse myself more because i don't have to set up a game plan for every level.

Hehe, this post is an ultimate sign of the times.

The modern RPG evolved from Dungeons & Dragons rules which is almost exactly what you just described.

Ultimately it's down to preference, some people want to sit in front of an Xbox with their mouths hanging open after work and hit the same button repeatedly to win. Others want to done lab coats and break out refrigerator sized calculators to work out the DPS of their Rusty Pen Knife +4.

Each to their own. Personally I fall into the camp that prefers complexity, games just aren't as involved as they used to be. That's sad imo.

They could have just given you say... 5-15 points to level up on stats at each level up without any need to worry about how to level. Then you could have the complexity of stats, but the simplicity to get them how you want and "just play the game". Now it's been dumbed down, and I doubt we'll ever go back. It's a slippery slope, removing things. Because then there's nothing left.

I'm with you on that, how long before the Elder Scrolls becomes a racing game? Accelerate to go forwards, no brakes and onwards to victory!

I feel completely unsatisfied by the character progression in this game. Removing attributes was oversimplification... and everything feels far too reliant on perks.

Skyrim is fantastic open-world game - great for adventure and dungeon crawling.... but pretty poor and dumbed down as an RPG.

It's called an interactive movie.

Do you want Calculon to:
A: File his report and get on with the work day.
Or
B: Save the town from a rampaging monster.

Edit
I'm really getting into the role of Calulon with this interactive movie, oh wai.... focus testing on b was terrible. We're cutting out options, enjoy the "interactive movie" with only one option.

Slippery slope is also a fallacy.

It is easy and relatively intuitive to presume that any change that is undesired will continue onwards. It is also a leap in logic and intellectually bankrupt to jump towards the far end that all desireable things will eventually go away by this process. It is a dumbing down of logic and rational thought itself.