if you said is beth selling out to steam then i'd agree 1000000000000%

as with the stuff you've posted?

i agree.. i expected as i think alot did... skyrim = oblivion + uber charged with content,

but quite alot was removed for instance i may not of used spell making but alot of people did and enjoyed it...

i expected skyrim to have ALL that was in oblivion and much much more...

if it did then for me even with the annoying bugs, skyrim could have been awesome or super duper awesome but it lost out for selling out to steam.

Perks actually do something though. They allow you to specialize your character, and give the character focus and definition.

It's definitely still possible. Why do think there are all these people complaining about how Master difficulty isn't hard enough for them?

And again, why can't the speech tree handle this? Done well, of course?

Developers that are owned by their publishers = bane of this industry.

That's it

EA maxis DICE Bioware

Activision IW, Blizzard, Neversoft

Zenimax, Bethesda game studio, id Software

All of which have made games that are shadows of its previous titles.

Enough with the paranoia about Steam. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the service. All I've seen you do on this forum is spread alarmist rumors, most of which are completely untrue.

Don't like Steam? Fine. But it speaks volumes about your argument when you can't make a point without making things up.

Difficulty level isn't the same issue.

Again, you've agreed that a perked skill at 100 is much stronger than an unperked skill at 100. So it is literally impossible to reach the same level of uber-mastery that was previously possible in Oblivion or Morrowind.

Please, in Oblivion - where only certain skills levelled your character up - that was being forcing you to specialised because you had to use those skills. I flip from stealth to combat to magic any time I want in Skyrim depending on what skill I want to increase that day.

No more than anyone else in the business of making money is. If you want to keep making games then you have to appeal to what is believed people want. Main problem is the mass of people don't know what they want. Most just seem to like to play, watch or listen to the same things over and over. Look at any video site that has stats of ratings vs views and you'll find a huge difference in what is rated highest and what is actually watched the most. But right now, ratings are what count the most and who things are marketed towards. In this day and age it takes some cojenes to make something truly unique. Having said that, unique is quickly becoming a thing of the past since most ideas have already been done. RpG's seem to be the hardest niche to mass market. They have to appeal to the rpg crowd and yet try to get those gamers that aren't so into that type game. Lets face it, first person shooters and online play is where the biggest sales lay. (two things I really hate in games but not much I can do about that.)

But perks mostly add special effects to your character. Since perks weren't in Oblivion or Morrowind, by raising your skills to 100 and not fully perking them you are reaching the same level of uber-mastery. You might not be, given that some perks are +% damage, but in any case you're still going to be uber-powerful either way. This has always been an issue with Elder Scrolls, and Skyrim certainly didn't fix it, which is why people are raising the difficulty level.

Except people abused the leveling system in Oblivion no end by specifically leveling up skills they don't specialize in.

You can still level up using secondary skills in Skyrim, but after level 10-ish, leveling up previously-unused skills has little-to-no effect on your overall character level.

Generally speaking, the first perk set of 5 in any tree is dedicated so simply making you better at that skill. Something like 20/40/60/80/100 percent increase in effect. So, yes they do make you better at that skill.
Secondly, you have a really good point about it being easy to sneak past someone with a skill of 40 and no perks. That's a balancing problem with the skill, not something that a missing attribute will solve.

There aren't any. There should be. You still don't need attributes for that, though. An athletics skill with athletic perks would do just as much and more. I think you and I agree, though.

They removed attributes because it's possible to get to 100 in all of them. However, you can't get all perks. Perks thus have more limits and force more choices, and are therefore more powerful at shaping a character. Lastly, perks can add MANY more boosts in skills and new abilities than a simple 1-100 scale of attributes can do.
Perks are superior, so they were not added just for the sake of adding them.

We could all love a few more, but they are not useless.


Game balance problem /= need for attributes.

It could I guess, that they chose not to do that however is a different matter entirely. This topic isn't about attributes, it's about whether Bethesda is or is not removing RPG aspects from the Elder Scrolls series; even after Fallout 3 it's clear that adding even a minute focus to dialouge and questing was never on their minds. Whilst I was debating the removal of attributes I thought I'd mention again the companies lack of care on good writing or quests that interact with others in more ways than just a series.

Skills can't replace Attributes with Roleplaying, it only leads to imaginative Roleplaying and not something that you can actually see. I can't tell how smart my character is or how strong they are in Skyrim.

Varus, my latest replies were specifically directed at nerevarine1138.


Again, I'm not saying attributes are completely necessary, just that they would at least be better than what we have now. The perk system has the potential to replace attributes, but it needs serious improvement. If it is not improved, then a perks + attributes combination would be sufficient.

Again, for the last time, finally, and again, you are talking about completely separate issues. Being super-powerful because it's easy to beat enemies with the skills you have is completely different than being super-powerful because you have mastered every skill in the game to the point that any character that was specializing in those skills wouldn't be able to do it better than you.

If I've made a character who I've leveled as a mage, they should always be better at casting spells than my warrior. In Oblivion, it was possible to have a mage and warrior be exactly the same skill level in a school of magic. In Skyrim, that's no longer possible.

Except they're not separate issues. You can still be an uber-powerful jack of all trades in Skyrim, as I've mentioned. Does that mean you will be as uber-powerful as a character that is fully specialised? Maybe not, but in either case, the difficulty level probably won't be enough for you, even at Master.

And people abuse it in Skyrim too, went of my cusion's house the other day to see him grinding magic skills on a prisoner in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary - I made a point to call him a ponce and that the game was wasted on him, which it is. Maybe that's why I'm opposed to this dumbing-down of these games, because everyone I know IRL has the balls to claim to be a fan of Fallout despite doing nothing more than skipping through all the dialouge and blowing everything up - [censored]ers...

For the love of Talos, you're agreeing with me and managing to make it sound like you aren't.

You flat out admitted that a character who doesn't take perks in a skill can't be as powerful as a character who does. Ignore difficulty level. Ignore whether a powerful jack-of-all-trades is as good as a specialist. Focus on the actual point: you can no longer do what was possible in Oblivion and Morrowind with attributes. Period.

Well, I'm not quite sure this is accurate. If you level and perk out all mage skills, you will not be able to level and perk out all the warrior ones, and certainly not all the thief ones. So in Skyrim, if you level and perk out your mage, nobody is going to be as good a mage as you unless they do the same.

In Oblivion, you could level all skills and all attributes.

However, I think we agree that it requires very little levelling and perking in order to be "good" at something in Skyrim. This is a skill balancing problem. You can do way too much with the sneak abilities without leveling them at all. I never perk out lockpicking, but I also never break more than 3 or 4 picks on even the hardest locks.

That's nonsense. I'm a "master" lockpicker, but I haven't used any skills or perks in it. You and I both know that's a problem. But it's not related to whether or not you need any attributes to fix it. What you need is a weaker skill without levels and perks.

His point is that it doesn't matter as much. In Morrowind/Oblivion you can become the ultimate mage/warrior/thief JUST because you have high skill in everything, in Skyrim however, even if you have 100 in everything, you'll only be best in the skills you perked. Thus, you are more specialised. In previous games you started out specialised and became bland. In this one you start out bland and become specialised. Which is better? That's a matter of debate but personally I prefer the latter.

Exactly. I wouldn't mind attributes being gone but the perk system really needs an overhaul.

who in the HELL do you think you are buddy? you might like kissing steam ass but i dont which doesnt give you the right to have a go at me.. everything i've said about steam is true if you cant handle that then you know where you can go jump.

you tell me what i've "made up"? but next time check your attitude at the door.

Exactly.

In the beginnign of the Skyrim build I'm currently using, I could do as much damage with a greatsword, a bow, or a knife as I could with my spells.

However, now that I've max perked Archery and Sneak, I can't do hardly any damage without using my bow. Spells are worthless, and using a sword is only good on the first hit if I get a good sneak shot in.

I have become specialized. I like it, and there's actually nothing I can do at this point to make my magic as powerful as my archery. That's a good thing. I have created a class, and I didn't need any attributes to do it. That was Skyrim's goal in the first place, so in that regard they succeeded.

Rebalancing the skills and perks is required, yes. However, the system works.

Look around you, its not just Bethesda, art is being snuffed out for the sake of money on a large scale. The world is falling into darkness