Fro mwhat I take of it, he is talkign about the complete lack of C&C with skyrim. Doesn't matter if your thane of all the holds, leader of all the guilds or completed the MQ and civil war the world does acknoledge any of that.

To deep the definitions of your character and make then less "generic"?

we dont need them to make are characters "deep", we have perks and other things.

The mechanics behind the game is there to support your choices in the game. In a role-playing system where there is a variety of possible characters to play, the mechanics define your role by giving you the positive element of success when you do the things your character is good at, and reversely, punish you with failure if you keep trying to do things your character is not good at.

Now let's look at Skyrim:
Initially the game mechanics will not affect the level of success very much, shooting a bow, or casting a spell will generally have the same level of success, because your character's skill level is very even. However, stick to a few skills and the game mechanics start to reward you with more success, because as you raise these skills they become more effecient. Once you progress you must start making choices, using your perks. At higher levels, the mechanics start to heavily define your character, investing in only magic perks will result in the game severely punishing you if you try to approach a combat with a melee-weapon.

The purpose of the mechanics in Skyrim works well with the game, they reward you for doing actions your character is good at, or that you want your character to be good at.

Compare to Morrowind/Oblivion
Initially the mechanics slightly rewards using the skills that your class provided, it's not a huge difference and you can get by with using the "wrong" skills. Now, the mechanics are supposed to bump this reward to get you to play according to your character's strengths (the definition of your character)...but they don't. Here's where the mechanics fail and the system falls apart. I do get better at the skills, and this does make using these skills "better" in terms of the game. But I also have this thing called attributes, and as a reward for working my way past obstacles and challenges, the game let's me level up and rewards me with an increase in these attributes. However, if I have approached the game "correct" (according to my character definition) the mechanics punish me, by giving me less attributes. If I approach the game "wrong", I don't play according to my character's strengths and definition, then I am rewarded with more attributes. The little invisible shadow that feeds me little "game candy" whenever I do something right is holding back on his candy when I play according to the nature of my character. Which makes me start thinking "hey, how can I get more of that candy? Oh, I must do this..." and I start playing my characters backwards, grinding out minor skills, with the little invisble game mechanic urging me on with extra candy.

A role-playing game mechanic should always give me more rewards and success for playing according to my character definition, Skyrim does this better than Morrowind/Oblivion.

This again.

...

Think of humans in real life. Flesh and blood defines who we are - not just the skills we learn in life. Characters in a video-game obviously aren't made of flesh and blood, so attributes are used instead to define them. Without attributes, all characters essentially become generic and determined only by aesthetics and the skills they learn.

Perks don't really define anything however, they are just generic damage enhancers or techniques. the ydon't tell us anything about physical attributes.

In my opinion attributes + perks would be more satisfying than just perks.

Nope
Lots of great PnP RPGs like Runequest didn't have a class system
I prefer to define my character by their abilities and actions rather than a label

I miss attributes. Not so much the old class system which kinda locked you in place throughout the rest of the game (especially combined with the multiplier system). I get the feeling that our demand for a "custom class", which allowed all sorts of "exploits" to happen, is what ultimately caused its demise.

If we had classes, I'd much prefer them to be like professions (without any "custom" ones) with great variety, that made your character have a background, and eased up leveling on that professions skills but only for the initial phase of the game. Assume I pick mage as a background profession that defines by starting bunuses in relevant skills. During character creation I then "buy ranks" (or whatever the mechanic may be) in either mage or i.e. spellsword that may reduce my abilities to fully learn i.e. restoration but get one handed instead.

Then disconnect leveling from the skills. Instead skills are dynamic and must be maintained to keep their edge, and you may only master say 3 skills according to your ranks in a profession. The idea here is to allow the player control over his own leveling speed (quest like mad to gain levels, some of us don't like questing that much but still allow sensation of progress due skill movement).

The "buying ranks" game. It's basically a system where you "go to school" to setup your own potential in a limited selection of skills. The perks you get will still be available if it is one below the requirement (master perks would be available for expert, but not for apprentice and novice), but at reduced effect/hightened cost as governed by the skill.

Well, it's hard to explain in more detail Nobody tends to read it anyway, so

not really, My Level 44 archmage character (my Main) can even with extremely low skills can kill bandits with swords and bow's almost as easy as with spells. Perks are a different step to making yo umore specialized yes, but TES never took C&C far enough for me.

Numbers do not define my physical character. My character is unique in that it is mine and how I have defined it. If skills and perks make for generic characters, then wouldnt 2 characters that had, say, 50 across the board of attrubutes be technically the same?

How do numbers all of a sudden not make the game generic? Aside from the fact there are scores more of "attribute" based RPGs, I think they make a game more generic.

Indeed. I rather have perks than attributes if I had to chose though.

Because they define what your character is capable of? While not havingthem means all characters are the same. Hence "Generic".



RP definintion of yoru character in your mind and how the game treats them are two different things.

You and me both.

I have heard Runequest is supposed to be much better than D&D. Any truth to this?

As someone else said your Char can be unique without "Mechanics" an example would be your chars Ideology, you can only do stuff that you char would do, like not killing civilians.

Thats what skills do...

IE: Smithing. You have a perk tree, more perks means more capability.

Destruction. Higher destruction, more perks, means more proficient in the art.

Where do attributes fit in here? Examples...

Skyrim is herp derpin all over my video game collection. If there wasn't a CK coming I would throw it away before its stupid rubs off on anything else.

Ever thought of why a CV doesn′t contain a list of numerical "attributes", but rather a list of experiences and skills along with a description of personality traits. Is it because maybe, that DEFINES who you are to a prospective employer much better than numbers.

Of course they do. If your character walks upto a heavy object, it's numbers that tell the game whether they're capable of lifting that object. If your character starts running, a number determines at what speed they run at.

Without numbers, your character is defined purely in your imagination, with little or no bearing on their interactions with the rest of the gameworld.

Skills and perks are just numbers as well.

If the player chooses to make two characters exactly the same then there's not much the game can do to prevent them doing that. The more complex the system is for defining characters though, the less likely it is that genericness among characters will occur.

Attributes do not define anything, they are fluff to provide a "goal" to reach. Skills or Perks are what defines what you can and cannot do. Attributes only provide a small bonus to skills when a certain level is reached, the stat is not causing the ability. These bonuses and such are currently found within the perks and leveling system.

In my imagination? You mean... like ROLE PLAYING?

BLASPHEMY!

Skills define world interactions. Not attributes. Which is what i was refering to when i said numbers dont define me.

Generic example:
Will power governed Magicka regen in OBlivion right? Now from what I remember reading about mechancis of skyrim it now jus ta flat rate for everyone. Hence My Oblivion mage can now out perform a skyrim mage because of an attribute.

You also have a stick to measure against other NPC's as well. So yo ucna really say "I'm stronger then that guy." and the game will back you up.

The things you just said ARE a reflection of your Attributes. XD


Eh for me it's the diferance between virtual "LARPing" and playing a cRPG. One is meaningless as far as the game is concerned and the other is acknoledge by the game world.


TES always had "soft" effect for Attributes, they could easily be made to play a stronger role in how effect yo ucharacter does things.

EDIT: Gah double post meant to edit not post! XD

And in Skyrim the system is more complex than all earlier ES games, with a possible exception of Daggerfall because you get much more consequences of your choices as you level up.