This is a topic that I imagine has been overdone, so I am a little weary about bringing it up, but it is one of the few things I am actually interested in talking about. I recognize that this is chiefly a complaint, however, I am not interested in hating on Skyrim (because I love the game) but rather I just want to write out why I am confused about this particular and frankly odd design choice. With that out of the way, I'll jump in.

Everytime I have talked about Skyrim with anyone who cares about it, I have become accustomed to using the word "spartan", which in this context does not mean an armored super human, but rather implies a very sparse but effective set up. When I think of that word however, I do not think effective is the proper term to describe the changes in Skyrim from Oblivion and Morrowind but I would prefer to use passable. Essentially, I have no idea why the guys and gals who made this game decided to remove all of the statistical systems they had in place and make the game the way they did.

The core gameplay is practically identical to Oblivion (I am fairly sure, it's been a while since I fired that one up) and I really have no issues with that system. In fact, when it comes to core mechanics, I really like the things they've done, such as making magic able to be set to each hand and addressing the awful and stiff looking character animations. They did an amazing job in that department. I was also very excited when I heard about the changes to the skill system and the addition of perks, because in my mind I was imagining a system similar to Fallout 3 and I thought that would be pretty awesome. The execution of all these stat and skill changes though have all pretty much fallen flat for me.

First of all, we have the complete removal of stats, leaving only the three core attributes intact. Functionally, this works, and doesn't dramatically affect gameplay, but it gives the whole game a really awkward feeling. Without the ability to measure and increase strength or intelligence, it feels very odd as your character progresses. Perks maintain the feeling of increased strength, but it doesn't seem right that I can be a master of two handed weaponry and yet hit someone like a 3 year old when using a one hander. Strength translates my physical power to my character and without it, the game has no way to relate how my warrior is strong. Essentially, my warrior should be stronger than a mage by default because of their professional choices, we should not be equally strong with a blade just because we elected not to put perks into a skill tree.

Overall, the removal of stats and the repercussions of that choice have really impacted gameplay. I could carry on more, but I think I've made my core argument, or at least most of you understand where I'm coming from if you've had experience with Morrowind and Oblivion like me. I understand that the team wants the game to be accessible and they don't want people to be shoe horned into classes or ache types from the get go, however, I think those two concerns are outweighed by the consequences of this system. Having to invest a little bit of time to understand the system in Oblvion and Morrowind was not that bad, or at least I don't know anyone who was driven away from the game because it was too "stat heavy" or complex. And as far as being locked into a class goes, I find that alternative much more enjoyable than this current system, which when stacked next to ones in Oblivion, it feels as though it is just the framework for the older games. I mean spell categories have been majorly reduced and the game just feels shallow.

Now, does it work? Yes. Do I love Skyrim? Yes, absolutely. I think the game is amazing and the team did an excellent job. However, I cannot rationlize this design choice in my head no matter what I do. To me, it doesn't make sense, especially when you consider how rich the experience is otherwise. Depth and complexity are not the same thing. Oblivion had depth, but it wasn't complex. You could play for about 2-3 hours and understand all the systems in the game, it wasn't obstructive to the gameplay, but it added to it greatly by allowing all these different effects. I have said other places that I understand some changes, like maybe removing speed as a stat so you can set a baseline movement speed for characters (which is probably necessary with the new animations) but just taking the axe to the whole thing? This is truly the only major lament I have in the game, and I was just curious if other people thought it was a big deal or if they hardly cared at all. Also, if anyone has a link to a statement made by the developers as to why they did this, I would be grateful for it. Thanks for reading!

Why are you using the term Spartan :s

I've never heard the word Spartan used in this context before.

spartan is a little off...

To me spartan makes me think of halo, 300, an kicking people into wells

What? Spartan? More like Viking.

Spartan means functional and or straight forward, not meant to do anything but what its meant to do. the bare minimum.


I applaud the op ';p

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Spartan

Spar·tan (sp?r[img]http://img.tfd.com/hm/GIF/prime.gif[/img]tn)
adj.
1. Of or relating to Sparta or its people.
2. also spartan

a. Rigorously self-disciplined or self-restrained.

b. Simple, frugal, or austere: a Spartan diet; a spartan lifestyle.

c. Marked by brevity of speech; laconic.

d. Courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity.

So it doesn't mean "one who kicks people down dark large wells"?

Makes sense now, not that I'm happy with the definition though :/

The idea is that the game notices your character's routine and leveling responds accordingly. If you never practice with a 1H sword, who says you wouldn't be clumsy with it? If you do practice using it, the game will notice and immediately start to level the skill. Personally I think it's very intuitive and makes more sense than front loading attributes.

I'm aghast that so many people don't understand the OP's usage of "spartan". Before Hollywood and "300" there used to be actual ancient Sparta and spartan lifestyle, you know: simple, harsh life of young warriors with no comforts and a lot of sacrifices. So sad that everybody thinks only of "kicking people down wells"... :/

Anyway, I agree with the OP.

Well I knew about them before, like it'd go all communist style I think it was in times of like crazy need, women had quite a bit of rights and something involving single men being chased through streets either while being naked or the females were naked. I just really like the idea of kicking people in wells, and the throwing babies off of cliffs, a lil inhumaine but eh, thy wanted the best of the best

Merely genetic purification. Get rid of the weak and disfigured babies. Leaves more resources for the strong and fit. Also especially in times like that and a society like Sparta's, a life for a cripple or a disfigured human would have been no life at all really.

Well you learn something new everyday. For the record I wasn't saying you were wrong, just that I'd never heard it used in this way before.

That's the one part of 300 I never got, when they met the disfigured guy, why not kill him? He should've never lives in the first place, not that I hate disabled ppl or anything, just based on their culture it would've made sense, but then again it is just a movie I guess

Just what I was going to say. The movie was semi-mythical, based on a comic book rather than the actual Spartan culture.

Also didn't that disfigured guy say his mother and/or father saved him from death out of love ? I suppose this would have happened on occasion.

I don't find this to be the case. Stat points are more ambiguous than perks really. And all they ever did was serve as 1) a point check for gear and 2) carry weight.

Their uses are still present in Skyrim, however. Gear use is still limited, as you are still subject to carry weight (increased by taking more stamina). Intelligence is still a barrier because that concept is absorbed into magicka and mana costs. Strength is not really here but its not necessary because perks handle damage and defense increases. Of course this applies for agility as well.

I think its more fluid in having an actual skill built up, rather than a stat number that has no direct relation to my character other than a gear check. I still have to level up my destruction, conjuration, whatever to 100 to use the strongest of spells. And moreover, I have to have a magicka pool to cast them. I don't have to have a high Heavy Armor skill to use Daedric armor, but at that point its just a skin design. If you look at the effective armor points, there's not much difference between daedric and iron if you don't have skill and perks. But you're gimping you carrying capacity by wearing stuff while getting minimal extra benefit. I think that's more realistic.

As a real life anology. I'm a pretty good fighter. I boxed, did martial arts for about 10 years. Then did BJJ for a couple. Then moved into MMA for a while. I'm strong and fit. BUT, man I can't shoot to save my life. Its a good thing I was a medic in the military cuz I svck beyond about 15m. So, I'm sure strong enough to pull a bow with even a heavy draw. But I can't hit anything with it. I guess its possible they could make it more difficult to aim with higher level bows if you have low skill. IDk I'm not a programmer and not sure what that would entail. But you have similar effect at least in that the damage is gimped.

I don't think its spartan at all. And think many people mistake the new modulation as being streamlined. But really a lot of the things that were absorbed into other areas were trivial in function anyways. If the only point of a stat is to dictate whether or not I can use X piece of gear or cast Y spell, then what's the difference between a stat point and a skill level? I'm still clicking to put them where they go, its just one gets clicked every time I cast a spell or swing a sword as opposed to sleeping and leveling up.

Besides, its not like stat points meant anything anyways, you could abuse the leveling mechanic and just about max them all anyways. At least in OB, its been too long since I played the others to remember.

Yeah, but you'd think it would be a crime and that the king would fix this onc meeting the guy, of course just assumptions and stuff

wrong!
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

They served a purpose as far as giving the character choices in quests, dialogue and countless other situations.

I share this view.

The whole point of Spartan infanticide was to ensure that only the strongest and healthiest and most fit survived to become the next generation of Spartan warriors (and mothers of more Spartan warriors). Since the family of the disfigured character had voluntarily and permanently exiled themselves from Sparta, he posed no danger to Spartan genetic standards. The important thing was that he was removed from their gene pool, not that he be killed simply for being unfit. His parents accomplished that by giving up their life in Sparta and starting a new one somewhere else.

In the context of his meeting with Leonidas, the only thing that matters is that he cannot fight alongside them due to the nature of his infirmity, which would make him a liability rather than an asset. That's a reason to reject him as a soldier, but not to kill him for being unfit to father another generation of Spartans, which is not going to happen anyway. It's not like he's gonna go back to Sparta and reenter their gene pool.

True, all I can think of to say haha

First off, thanks to everyone who cleared up the whole disambiguation concerning my use of the word spartan, I truly appreciate it. Also, if anyone would have bothered to read even through my second paragraph, you would see I specifically address the word. I guess that is what I get for my wall of text, but still, c'mon people... lol.



First off, seeing as how we are just past the 4th, let me say thank you for serving our country in the armed forces! It truly does mean a lot to me personally to have good men and women willing to give their lives so I can live in peace. Second, thanks for reading through my large post and replying coherently, I'm glad to have the opportunity to discuss this more.

To begin, I am uncertain if stat points are really more ambiguous than perks. On the one hand, stats (by which I mean Strength, Endurance, Int, etc.) have really good corollaries to in game mechanics. By that I mean Strength dictated carry weight to a degree, as well as influenced how hard you hit with any melee weapon and the like. This to me seems to be very unambiguous, in that the stat directly associates with certain actions or consequences that makes a great deal of sense. The only stat that I find to be ambiguous was Luck, but then again, that one was always nebulous to begin with and only really affected critical strikes as far as I know. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you meant, and if that is the case, I apologize, but I don't think it is extremely detrimental to the argument.

Now, when comparing the stat system in Skyrim to Oblivion, I would characterize it as spartan compared to what it was or could have been. I will grant that it is completely functional, however, it just seems to be, well... I suppose the best way to describe it would be anoerexic. It just doesn't have the meat it used to, and I think it is more detrimental to the gameplay than a lot of people realize. People who never played any previous games won't know what they are missing, but there is just a characteristic richness that is absent without having stats to work with. Take for instance how removing stats affected the magical system. Without stats, you lost every absorb stat spell, damage stat spell, and fortify stat spell, not to mention it took an axe to a lot of diseases that used to be present.

This may not seem to be a huge problem, and granted, a lot of the same effects can be accomplished by reducing stamina or health or just reducing damage by a flat percentage, because the stats that would have been affected would have ended up affecting one of those main attributes anyway, however, it seems to me to be a brittle system. In Oblivion, you get your strength reduced by 5 points and it maybe affects melee damage by 2-3 points, which may attribute to about a 5% decrease in damage (I'm pulling these numbers completely out of my butt, someone may want to fact check this but it seems reasonable to me lol) which doesn't affect the damage modifiers you get from any enchantments, potions, and just the flat damage of your weapon. Now in Skyrim, you get hit with rockjoint and ALL melee damage you deal is decreased by 25%. That affects every modifier you have on you at the moment. That is a huge decrease. Take that argument to enchantments and it is worse. Enchanting is the most gamebreaking skill in the game, because once you have it mastered, you can effectively triple your damage output with percentage increases that are insane. And I'm not talking about using Alchemy, Blacksmithing, and Enchanting to intentionally break it, I'm talking about it being broken just with enchanting.

I'm starting to get long winded again so here is my basic point: I think Skyrim would have been much better off harmonzing this new perk system idea with their old stat system, in some manner akin to Fallout 3. The way things are currently does work, however, I find it to be very, well, "spartan" as well as being not as effective as other methods that are available. I don't think this was Bethesda trying to streamline the experience so much as it was them trying to optimize it. If that is a correct assumption, then it is my humble opinion that they made a huge mistake and I would implore them to reconsider it for ES 6.

Sorry for the wall of text!!!

I think that the simplicity of basic stats and leveling meshes well with the impressive array of abilities and perks available, and the items you can acquire, deconstruct, and combine. You can create a dizzying variety of character types, but without unnecessary complexity.

And if you do want a Spartan-looking character, just go with the right boots, helmet, and handwear, and no armor, and a sword and shield. You'll look like a refugee from "300". And whenever you charge into battle, you can yell: "Tonight we dine in Oblivion!"