» Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:08 pm Why removing Attributes was a mistake
Attributes were such a core component of Morrowind and Oblivion, you might have thought removing them was impossible. No one is going to argue that skills are the star of the show, but attributes occupied roles that were equally important being tied into your carrying capacity, amount of health gain per level, as well as maximum magicka and many other numerous things. For Skyrim, Bethesda apparently thought they were too cumbersome or unnecessary and so they got rid of them entirely. I am here to make the case that this decision was absolutely wrong.
First off, let's refute the common and popular argument(s). The one that readily comes to mind is that attributes were complicated and so they got rid of them to streamline the experience. If you seriously believe that, I would invite you to buy a copy of Oblivion (if you haven't played it yet) and try it out. I imagine you would find that attributes are not complex at all. The systems they govern are covered thoroughly in the manual and as far as the core experience is concerned, they barely affect the gameplay at all. This would then lead into the second common argument that attributes are unnecessary and so they were removed to get rid of clutter and, again, streamline the experience. This argument I find to be flawed as well. It is true that you can get by with the system in place in Skyrim, however, that doesn't mean it is better off. In fact, a lot of things were removed in the transition to Skyrim that are technically "unnecessary" but that I still imagine makes the experience not much better off (examples include the insane pruning done to the magic schools and the removal of disposition, plus many others). I find the easiest way to understand my point would be to say, "You can function without both your arms, but no sane person is going to be satisfied with one when they could have two".
So that was a quick rebuttal of arguments against attributes, but what about positive evidence for why removing attributes was a bad idea? The best argument for why it was a mistake to remove attributes comes when we look at the precedent established by Oblivion. If you have the old manual to look through (or just find it online) examine how skills were handled in Oblivion. You will notice that at certain skill thresholds you would unlock abilities, such as at a skill level of 25, you are no longer fatigued when blocking. Every skill had these bonuses built into them. If you look at skyrim, a lot of those bonuses are now worked into perks. Obviously, the one I just used is not one of them, but all the weapon skills had bonuses worked into them similar to the higher level perks for weapons in Skyrim. Look to the Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Expert, Master perks built into every magic tree, necessary to be able to cast magic of a higher level in Skyrim. These perks were built into the respective magic skills in Oblivion. The passive damage increases for weapons were almost assuredly built into the skill (you didn't receive a passive percentage increase at a certain point, but skill increases probably just accounted for more damage output, as well as strength modifying your melee damage) and the same goes for armor skills as well. Overwhelmingly, all of the perks for skill trees now in Skyrim were things ripped from skills in Oblivion that were at one point innate to the skill. So, although it may seem that skill trees and perks are very progressive, they are really just the remnants of an old system that were stretched out and modified to look more fleshed out. Unsurprisingly, removing things that worked doesn't make the new product magically better.
The worst thing to come from all of this is the loss of richness in the gameplay, not to mention the flexibility. One of the major reasons that was given from stepping away from classes was to prevent players from writing themselves into corners, or from making major choices before they barely understood the game. This was a legitimate point, however when you look at Skyrim I fail to see the resolution to that problem and worse, I see an even bigger one. The perk system is horridly rigid, requires a great deal of planning to get optimal (and in some cases even just effective) results, and discourages experimentation. The first point is self explanatory; once you've spent a point, there is no getting it back. This leads to the other two issues. Since each point is a permanent decision and a major allocation of resources, if you don't plan out where they are going, you will quickly find yourself without enough points to fill trees necessary for your major and most used skills. This effectively squashes and experimentation, especially when you get close to level 50 and you effectively stop leveling at any appreciable rate (unless you skill grind). These problems were not present in Morrowind and Oblivion, because there was never pressure to "level up". If you were behind in a skill, you only needed to focus on bringing that skill up to get back in line. Now it doesn't really matter if your skills are all at level 100, because if you don't have any perks to put in them, they are effectively useless.
I could go on talking about how the loss of attributes has affected the richness of gameplay, but that is fairly self evident. My main point in this portion was just to establish how the removal of attributes has been solely detrimental to the overall gameplay experience. If someone still wants to argue this point, I wouldn't really know what else to say. I suppose if you are ok with living with one arm, that is your choice, but I personally prefer both.
What Elder Scrolls 6 SHOULD look like
So I know I spent the last 4 paragraphs bashing the new perk system, but in all honesty, I find the concept of perks for skills to be incredibly awesome, the execution just leaves a lot to be desired. The first thing they need to do is bring back attributes. Refinining the system in Oblivion wouldn't be a bad idea, such as tweaking speed so it doesn't wreck the new silky smooth character animations they have going. I also find the idea of raising attributes like you do skills to be appealing. For instance, maybe whenever you make items in smithing, you receive a small amount of experience toward raising your Strength and Endurance, and when you sprint you gain small increases toward increasing your Agility and Endurance (possibly even Speed, I do not know if it would be a good idea to have speed as an attribute if they have fixed player speed like they do now). A system such as this would remove some of the annoyance players felt at having to level up minor skills to receive desired stat boosts. Now everything could follow the same intuitive, "do the activity to raise the skill" that the game is based upon. I would also resume having health, stamina, and magicka increases governed by attributes, so that way you should receive increases to all of your stats per level, in a proportion that resembles your attribute priorities.
Now as far as perks go, the first thing I would do is remove them from the rigid tree structure they are currently in. Take all of the passive damage perks and add them into skills, balancing them out with having strength influencing melee damage (maybe have Willpower influence spell damage as well?). Do the same thing with the different weapon strikes, such as Sweep, Standing Power Attack, Sprinting Power attack, etc. Essentially build those back into the skills. Next, I would take a page from Fallout 3 and make perks level and skill restricted. This would remove the annoyance of having to select certain perks just to get to the ones you wanted, as you would still be able to save perks for higher level choices. With this system in place, I would also restrict the number of perks players can select, maybe being very stingy with them, such as having only 15 or 20. Now, with a system like this in place, you can get EXTREMELY creative with your perks, which is where I think we will see the next game make some huge strides.
To me, perks should be synergistic as much as possible. Here are some perk ideas I had if they used a system like this.
- Wizard's Will (req Destruction 75; Willpower & Endurance 60)
Perk description: When your Magicka reaches 0 from casting a destruction spell, you will begin to consume Stamina to cast further Destruction spells at a cost 1.5 times greater than that of the Magicka cost. Passively increases Magicka Regen by 50%.
-Arcane Archer (req Archery 75; req Destruction 25)
Perk description: Casting Arcane Archer(Fire, Ice, or LIghtning) will imbue your arrows with that damaging spell effect for the next 180 seconds. While imbued, arrows will deal appropriate elemental damage which increases with your destruction skill. Your destruction skill will also increase when using arrows imbued with Arcane Archer.
-Mystic Shield (req Alteration 50; req Willpower 50)
Passive skill. When struck with a projectile, Mystic shield will activate, dealing damage to Magicka equal to 1.5 times that of the damage incurred. Increasing Alteration will decrease the ratio of damage received (have a skill of 75 be 1.25 and a skill of 100 be 1). While Mystic Shield is active, player is immune to stagger and slow effects.
Essentially, make perks that are extremely cool and actually make people make tough decisions. For the examples given, if you are a pure mage, maybe you say to yourself, "Man I don't really need stamina for power attacks" so you take Wizard's Will to give yourself an even larger pool of "magicka" to work with. Or maybe you are primarily an archer but like to mix in some destruction. Because both of those skills are exlusive (if you are shooting something with a bow and arrow you can't be shooting it with magic) this skill lets you take advantage of your destruction skill while still being an archer. Finally, for battlemage types that are more heavily geared toward melee combat, Mystic Shield might be a perfect pick for them, as it will give them some precious mitigation while they close the gap with casters and archers.
In short, I would love to see perks be fused with skills and attributes to create a system where meaningful choices can be developed and made. For all the perks I just listed, I don't see why they couldn't be implemented into Skyrim at this exact moment, and those are really just boring ones off the top of my head. Who knows what the talented people at Bethesda could do? It is essential though to bring back attributes into the game, otherwise I don't see how this system could work. I fervently hope that someone at Bethesda reads this and at least gives it consideration. With the advent of next gen almost upon us, I see the potential for a truly epic Elder Scrolls game, and I think the changes I've talked about here would make it even better.
Please feel free to comment on what you think, sorry this was so incredibly long!
