User blog comment:LeDaea/On Attribute removal from Skyrim/@comment-58.69.27.93-20130409100139/@comment-3217145-20130413163923

I meant to make this reply short, but you make too many valid points. I think it would be unfair of me not to acknowledge them.


 * "the leveling system was actually extremely simple"

Important point. The old system was not difficult, it was just a bother. The new system attempts to remove the bother, because it was a bother, not to patronize n00bz. My original point was that Skyrim isn't being dumbed down.


 * "within the game I didn't really have any problems with my characters efficiency in combat regardless of the characters low strength why because the attributes based on attack power only acts as a amplifier for the skill that its integrated in the skill isn't dependent on it."

First, Strength was just an example. I can't really talk about something in concept without using concrete examples. All Skills are affected by an Attribute, and my point is that it's arbitrary. Another example: why does a high Willpower improve Alteration, while Intelligence improves Mysticism? Why not the other way around? Why make the distinction?

Second, if the difference is so small, why is it important to even have Attributes that affect Skills in the first place? Unless you mean that Strength specifically has a low effect, but the others are more important. In that case, ignore this point.


 * "...there would be no difference for your two spell swords because over all they would have the same attack speed and the same proficiency in magic."

That's because the system is built to rely on different things. Instead of making damage calculations using stats, it's based on your conscious decisions about character development. You shape your melee skill by focusing on certain weapon type, or dual wielding, or everything. For magic, you can train Conjuration to focus on Bound Weapons, Undead, or Summons; you can focus on Shock-based Destruction; you can use Illusion to complement a mostly-melee fighting style. Combining these together, you can combine Conjuration and Two-Handed with a Bound Axe; you can use a left-hand sword and a right-hand spell (like Bound Sword to dual wield); and so on.

You could decide your fighting style in Oblivion, too, but the characters would be even MORE similar to each other, with the only difference being efficiency, since Attributes only have an effect on simple number calculations. What is the difference between Spellsword A with high Str and low Will, and Spellsword B with high Will and low Str? Only which weapon they use more often. It has little complex effect on their fighting strategies. The playstyle differences provided by straightforward no-perk Skills and a handful of Attributes with minor effects is FAR less than the customization allowed by a perk-based system.

More importantly, I made the point before that “class” is not a real thing. The system is not designed around the creation and perfection of a specific character archetype. One of the specific goals of the design team was actually to destroy this aspect of the game, and encourage the player to build their playstyle from whatever they want to use, and be successful in whatever it is. What weapons do you like to use? What spells? Do you prefer to hide or charge? Do you even train combat skills? The difference between characters comes from this, their cold hard skills and what they do, rather the trivial differences caused by a bunch of numbers.

It's important to note that I believe that you can have perk-based Skills AND Attributes at the same time. Totally possible. The next game may add this, and assuming the leveling system isn't a pain, it will be good. My own preference is for character customization decided by a series of significant, tangible player choices, rather than the management of statistics. Since this is my opinion, it is not relevant to how objectively "good" a system is.


 * "...which would have made more sense on how endurance works in general which is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from, and have immunity to trauma, wounds, or fatigue."

This goes back to my earlier point. This is not how “endurance” works in the real world. A bodybuilder may be able to withstand a lot of force, but not have the stamina to run a marathon. These are two different things. Tying them to one attribute is artificial; there is no way, in the real world, to increase one's “endurance” to get better at both taking more damage and exerting yourself for longer. It's the other way around. You get better at long-term physical exertion by doing long-term physical exertion (raising your "Stamina"). You learn to take punches to the stomach by getting punched in the stomach (raising your "Health"). You get more resistance to disease by catching diseases. It makes more sense to remove the middleman and just level these things separately, because the ties are arbitrary.


 * ”these four essential attributes removed either completely really gives unneeded inconsistencies”

Again, I think the difference is small. All of the secondary stats derived from Attributes exist somewhere. The one exception is jump height, but I believe there's a specific reason for this: it's sequence-breaking. Extreme jumping would allow you into the secret room under Jorrvaskr early. It would allow you to skip several dungeons by jumping up to a hole or rock face and solving them backwards. In Oblivion, Acrobatics had no effect on your actual play style. The only things I used Acrobatics for were to parkour around cities and jump outside them, or to glitch it so high that I could jump over the Imperial City. Things like this break immersion in the game and cause glitches; it's the same reason Levitation was removed from Oblivion when they put cities in a different cell from the open world.

In TES:VI, I WANT Levitation and jump height. I also want spellcrafting. I DON'T want more features removed. But I recognize that there was a specific reason for Bethesda to remove them, and it wasn't “casualization.”

This, I think, is your best point: that the game requires you to train a range of skills to get enough Perks to master your core skills.

I think that's one disadvantage to an otherwise improved system. They released the system, players found the flaw through play, and hopefully for the next game, they will find a way to fix this. (Actually, they already addressed it in 1.9, though it does kind of suck that it requires you to undo what makes you great and start over from nothing).

One reason that I don't think this is such a detrimental problem is that it forces you to prioritize your perks and level intelligently. You can't just pump perks into everything and make it perfect, you have to decide carefully where to focus. Now, you could say "I shouldn't have to train Alchemy for Block perks." This is true. The system is not perfect. I can only reiterate that I prefer it.

To sum up my points:
 * The changes introduced in Skyrim's system are intended to improve the old one, and to improve the overall play experience. It isn't indisputably better, it's just different. It isn't being dumbed down.
 * The links between Attributes and Skills are arbitrary, and impose restrictions on players by unnecessarily handicapping their effectiveness at certain play styles.
 * Statistical differences have little nuanced effect on playstyle. Removing these statistics and replacing them with more focused Perks allows greater customization.
 * Skyrim's system attempts to approximate reality better. Statistics are inherently not realistic, more so as they become more complex. It is better to represent a character's stats with simpler, more direct values.