User blog comment:LeDaea/On Attribute removal from Skyrim/@comment-58.69.27.93-20130409100139/@comment-3217145-20130412041718


 * "Abandoning long-held beliefs and trying something new is the only way real progress gets made but that's only when progress is made."

Whether or not "progress is made" in Skyrim is debatable depending on whether or not you like the system. Either way, what I meant to say was that in the next game, they can use what they found out with Skyrim to make progress.


 * "they had perks removed classes to create a system that classes are based on what perks you picked in a tree to show your specialization and a system based more on gameplay style than limitations and benefits of class..."

That's my point right there. They removed the limitations of class. They may have thrown the baby out with the bath water a bit by removing other nuances, but they were attempting to remove unnecessary limitations. That is the goal of the game, and of the series.

I respect your right to dislike the changes. I'm not trying to argue the superiority of Skyrim's stat system (I believe in it, but I also believe it's entirely subjective). All I mean to do is defend the integrity of Bethesda's decision.

But since we're on the subject:


 * "now that this system is out instead of combining it or improving they just made a system and discount all of the thing that made the last games work stat wise."

I disagree. That's all I can say here. I found Oblivion especially to be a failure stat-wise. The Major Skills system did not encourage natural gameplay, it encouraged abuse in order to accelerate or delay leveling by choosing skills that didn't necessarily have anything to do with your character focus. Choosing only skills the player planned to use often was actually detrimental to their development because it would cause them to level too quickly and forfeit significant stat bonuses if they weren't careful, and forced them to do exactly what you're complaining about: branch into skills they didn't want in order to round out their stat growth. Making a narrowly-focused character was easier in some ways in Oblivion, because you could just pump a couple of desired skills and stats, whereas Skyrim won't give you enough perk points if you don't train some other skills (but again, they fixed this with patch 1.9 and Legendary skills). However, in Skyrim, you can specialize in certain aspects of a single skill instead of maxing it, like getting the Fire bonuses for Enchanting or Destruction while ignoring the others, or ignoring the Dodge or Hide abilities in Stealth, or grabbing only the Bound Weapons-related perks from Conjuration. This gives the player another flavor of customization to experiment with.

Again, you are right that some aspects related to skills have been removed. However, most haven't. The removed pieces are very small. The game would be better if Bethesda came up with a way to reintegrate them into the system, but my opinion is that the new system is better overall despite some minor losses. Issues like difficulty balancing are unrelated to attributes and easily solved by adjusting the game difficulty, which has always been an option in previous games. This is a failure of the developers to adequately balance different playstyles along with the system change, not a problem with the system itself. I could say that the previous system was detrimental to Archers because of the miserable damage of arrows and low sneak attack multiplier, whereas Skyrim vastly improved them despite adding a Stamina-related limitation to their aiming skill, but the difference comes from the damage and bow mechanics and not the skill system.
 * Strength: increased carry capacity and Fatigue. Carry capacity exists as part of Stamina (which is admittedly kind of strange). Fatigue/Stamina is raised separately.
 * Intelligence: increased MP and affects some skills. MP is raised separately. Spell effectiveness is determined by skill.
 * Willpower: increased Fatigue and MP regen. Stamina is raised separately. MP regen, can only be affected by clothes and one perk hidden away in a specific tree.
 * Agility: increased Fatigue and jump height. Stamina is raised separately, jump height is static.
 * Speed: increased running and attacking speed. Both of these are static, except for some specific spells/weapons that increase them.
 * Endurance: increased HP and Fatigue. These are raised independently.
 * Personality: affected NPC disposition and, by extension, prices. Exists unaltered in the form of the Speech skill, which has combined 3 different stats that all did the same basic thing previously. Speechcraft has essentially been removed and conversations are simpler, which is unfortunate but unrelated to the attribute/skill system.
 * Luck: increased or decreases all skills, provided other random effects occasionally. Never provided a significant enough bonus to affect a character's playstyle, unless it revolved around maxing every skill and stat. This can still be done.
 * All attributes except Luck are tied to specific skills. Skill effectiveness is now determined only by the level of the skill itself, unrelated to what attribute the developer's arbitrarily assigned to govern it. (See original examples for why I think this is a bad thing)