you define it to broadly. For instance in Fallout (originals) or any of the classic RPG types you only give the orders and the character has to carry them out as best as there skills dictate. not so In TES and other "action RPG's" that use FP. Example to perfectly demonstrate this is in Oblivion your character can have 0 skill in bow's but if you as a player are good at it you can get 100% hit ratio when everything on your character says it should be otherwise. Same story with minigames. Not so much in fallout 1/2 if my character has 25% in small guns and I tell him to shoot somewthign it isn't my hand guiding the crosshairs it's his skill.

Oh no, I hear you, but this is just my point of view when it comes to gaming. I'm just saying at some point the player decided to strengthen or ignore the skills that decide the character's viability in these mini-games. Indeed, the very act of initiating the mini-game was a player decision.

Attributes and mini-games are an anologue for character skill, true, but the choice and effectiveness of any part of a character is decided by the player ultimately. I tend to think that these attributes and mini-games just get in the way, and would be better left to the player in a more fluid manner.

I find it hard to believe that someone in a burning down prison shouldn't be able to at least attempt to pick the lock on thier cell, and that is ultimately what the 'character skill' argument attempts to justify.

The removal of otherwise completely logical options from a player or character.

Thats why I loved how it was done in the orignal fallouts, there was nothing stopping you from attempting to pick locks with your crappy lockpicking skilled guy just don't expect for him to succeed anytime soon. I personally love the more character /player seperation, because it make you think about the character your playing instead of how good your personal twitch skills are. So you have to RP your character instead of "yourself at the controls".

There was absolutely nothing wrong with attributes in Morrowind in Skyrim. Bethesda used up the fat nerd hardcoe market and set their eyes on females and the young age group with Skyrim, so they had to simplify things.

What you described is exactly what Skyrim has now (it's just spread out amongst trees and intermingled with perks), and the opposite of Fallout's 'list of perks' style that was completely absent of playstyle variety. Very bizarre request, imo. Skyrim's variability of play style makes Fallout look like Mario.

I play multiple characters, so I agree in part. I just don't agree that players should be so limited in their specialities. A Warrior who picks locks should not be an anomaly, it should be a valid possibility and one that does not force the player to sacrifice their martial skill in the process.

I would love Attributes back, but then with smooth progression and zero micromanagement.

The current system doesn't simulate the old Attributes at all.

The problem is that if I invest in perks in the Onehanded tree that are supposed to simulate that my character is growing stronger, it doesn't have any effect when I wield a Twohanded weapon. That's senseless. With a proper Attributes system, your Strength level would affect everything your character does that takes Strength to execute.

Attributes define your character in broad lines (your Archtype so to say), Skills make up your Class, and Perks are specializations within a Skill. Perks that are inside a Skill tree trying to simulate an Attribute is just weird, and doesn't work most of the time.

Hah.

It doesn't have to be an Annomily, all it mean is yo ucan't expect a low skill to pick lock reliably. You have to improve you skill at it. IE level the skill. As it is right now in Skyrim with the minigame, yo uhave all the time in the world to pick it and the minigame is extremely easy no matter your characters skill so it basiclly means 0 or 100 skill yo uwill pretty much always pick the lock, because your character skill doesn't in effect coutn for anything really noticable.

you not limited to anything you didn't personally specialize in. (I have the distint impression you never played Fallout 1/2)

No. I made a statement that you cannot distinguish one master swordsman from another because all master swordsmen are the same.
Not really. You ducked the entire issue by deciding to play on the technicality of the word 'swordsman', making one of them use a two-handed sword with perks while the other used a one handed sword with 3/5ths as many perks that only work while dual wielding.
The cuts in the quote were to contrast the 3 entirely different ideas you were employing to make the characters seem different when they're actually just using different weapons and fighting styles. Your argument was so far off point that the dual wielding perk wasn't even helpful to you, and you might as well have stopped with a sword\shield build. It's a complete non sequitur.
If anyone actually cared to try and figure out the number of perk combinations or what-not in the game, the numbers would make sense.
First Equation: 21 (Perks in 1 Handed Tree) + 19 (Perks in Two Handed Tree) + 13 (Perks in Shield Tree) = 53. 53^2 = 2809 Perk Combinations.
Second Equation: 13 (Weapon-Relevant Perks in Two-Handed Tree)^2 + 25 (Weapon+Shield-Relevant Perks in Shield and One-Handed Trees)^2 + 15 (Dual-Wielding Relevant Perks in the 1 Handed Tree)^2 *2 (Because each weapon can have two hand orientations) *3 (Because there are 3 types of One-Handed Weapons to wield in the off hand) *3 (of the whole sum, because all previous categories have 3 types of weapons.)*
'Weapon Relevant' meaning Perks that effect a given weapon type, so that Warhammer-Perk fighters are not included with Battleaxe-Perk fighters, in order to prevent the same perk build from being counted multiple times for weapons they will not realistically be using. This is very generous because Mace\Axe combinations are still counted alongside Axe\Mace combinations which are identical except for their hand orientation. Without that exception, there are only 4,407 possible fighters. If it wasn't obvious, x^2 is the total combinations of x possible within the specified range.
No B.S. was said. I threw out numbers because you offered such a lame argument last time you accused me of that, I decided to use one which is indisputable and quantifiable. I think it creates a nice contrast.
I didn't say they were major. I said they added detail to the character which is one way they added depth to the game.
As far as efficient processing goes, yeah. Skills are more efficient. They don't offer more customization though, as I showed above, and as I said, comparing them is a false dichotomy if they aren't mutually exclusive. They aren't even anologous. The perks in Oblivion and the Perks in Skyrim are a better comparison. Comparing attributes to perks is like comparing skills to perks. They aren't the same thing.
* Note: Noticed that it doesn't count the perks relevant to the off-hand weapon when it is not the same as the primary weapon. The correct equation would be:
(13^2+25^2+(15^2*2+18^2*4))*3
The 18 is because the second weapon gets +3 perks (15+3). 4 is because 2/3rds of dual wield combinations are different-type pairs, so 15^2*2 = 1/3rd, and 18^2*(2+2) = 2/3rds.
With that accounted for, it is 5,001 fighters (excluding mirrored weapon configurations) or 7,620 fighters (including mirrored weapon configurations).

Closed in 3...2...1...

I don't particularly like the concept behind Fallout and as a general rule, I don't like games from the first person perspective either. There are exceptions, but I won't lie, I'm rather new to TES and my experience with Fallout is even more limited. However, I have been playing RPGs, and games in general, for many years and I have experienced a multitude of stats based systems. In my personal experience, they vary between horrific and creativity-crushing, to tolerable.

The lockpick problem you highlight seems more to do with 'pausing' the game (you have all the time in the world) than stats and to be honest, I would prefer lockpicking to occur in real-time. Remaining with the subject though, I feel that a character who continually picks locks should, logically, acquire a degree of skill in lockpicking rather than have some number lock them down as forever awful at lockpicking. A player or character who has an active interest in lockpicking might specialise and thus, have certain skills another person might not and perks allow for this.

Attributes should have sub-attributes with cross referencing inverse and direct relationships. You should never be able to max every single Attribute and attributes should be limiters on Skills meaning that characters should not be able to master all skills either. Character sheets for your character should be 7 pages long at a minimum. The game map should be a map your character actually has to purchase and physically look at (Like in Gothic 1) or purchase a basic map and improve upon it with a cartography skill. There should never be a mini map or any kind of radar or GPS locator unless it is a sci fi/modern day title. There should always be a blank journal that you cna add your own entires to as well as a journal where the game makes certain automated notations for you. You shoyuld never be able to be the leader of every guild and actually becoming the leader of a guild should be difficult and not a common occurrance. Most guild questlines should end with the player being just a high ranking member.

Attributes should have sub-attributes and the game should make people read a LOT more.

if they did something more than effect the attributes skyrim gives us then why not? if they are mearly ways to raise health, damage, and mana then no, i personally think they were right to lose the system from ob and morrowind, you had to jump through hoops and power level to get the desired results

I'd rather have classes that difine what skills count toward a level up, but even then i'm still very satisfied with the way skyrim handled it, occam's razor and all that

It is an opinion. The reason why I think it creates shallow gameplay is because it is very one dimensional. If you are melee, you are left click or right click. Not much is situational. You do not really have combat abilities, which would create for more dynamic fights.

Attributes are a traditional RPG element. Itemization or equipment is a traditional RPG element. Removing those and instead making it solely or mostly hinge around player skill takes that RPG feel out of it. There should be character progression and it should influence your effectiveness. Not to the extent of a traditional RPG where the player accounts for a minimal portion in the equation, but enough to matter. Personally, I think that say fighting a Dragons, Giants, etc. should be stronger character checks AND skill checks. Because the AI and combat is shallow, I can be completely undergeared and take out any enemy with ease. I think it should at the very least be a challenge - which it simply is not.


Fixed or mostly fixed attributes do make you make a decision up front. The positive side to this is the "class" or character you are trying to make feels and plays like the character you are trying to make from the get-go, rather in Skyrim where only after you invest in Perks, get the correct spells etc. do you get that sense and the majority of the time everyone is just playing a generic class. I think you can have it this way, you just need to have the option of re-allocating your attributes at certain benchmark level(s) so esentially you can figure out what or how you want to play without restarting.

How does that not make any sense? I killed a Giant at level 3 by running around and jumping off a ledge. I can completely negate enemies and never so much as get touched by just strafing. My armor value effectively does not matter because I do not get touched. My Health pool, does not matter because I do not get touched. 16 perk points or 0 in a skill I can do this. Lockpicking, can easily be cheesed with a Lockpicking skill of 1 to open any Master lock in the game. This stuff isn't remotely challenging and makes skills just a commodity and gives me more room for error and allows me to be lazy.


I said that Attributes are solely modifiers. Skills act as solely modifiers by raising them. Perks by and large are just modifiers and do not give you any new spell, defensive tactic, or combat ability. Perks, should grant you new spells, defensive tactics, and combat abilities rather than having Perks that are modifiers. These modifiers previously were what you would use Attributes for. Bethesda took the effectiveness Attributes had and incorporated them into Perks. This makes Perks too highly weighted. They need to split the two.
Yes, high chances of failure are not fun. Being guaranteed success likewise is not. In Skyrim, I am guaranteed success because of how poor the AI is.
What? Do you not see that the effectiveness of Attributes have been put INTO the Perks? Strength typically would affect your damage per swing with Melee weapons. Now, they put in Perks like Armsman that increase your damage by a %age. They did not just remove Attributes, the repurposed them and hid them. What attributes did for the most part is still in Skyrim, just under different names.

Personally, I think attributes were handled best by a mod in Morrowind. Galsiah's Character Development. Attributes rose naturally depending on what skills you leveled up, and you'd gain a level for every X attribute-ups. No need for silly grinding for x5 Multipliers, just play the way you want.

*sniff sniff* I smell a moderator coming...

post limt and then some