Todd Howard's magic fetishism

[Lingwe]

Ever notice how in all his interviews about why he ordered the removal of attributes in Skyrim Howard says some variation of the following:

They say to me why did you remove attributes. I say "Why do you want attributes". They say "Well I need Intelligence for my magicka" so I say "Well now you just have magicka".

Howard always seems to miss the fact that attributes are used for other stuff than deciding health, magicka and fatigue. They can be used for skill checks in dialogue (like Bethesda discovered in Fallout 3). They affect speed. Luck can be used as a variable in scripts to determine the likelihood of something happening. But he keeps on coming back to intelligence and magicka.

The only theory I can come up with to explain why he keeps using this example and ignoring all the other reasons why attributes and their equal in the SPECIAL system appear. He is a witch. Or more accurately a wiccan - the deluded american mystical emo tribe that pretend that rituals can lead to real magic. His attempts so far at casting magic have all failed for obvious reasons (it doesn't exist) so when the time came to develop Skyrim that was all he was thinking about.

"Magic, magic. I must have it. Intelligence? Bah! Who gives a fuck about intelligence. I don't need intelligence. Magic is the only thing that is important".

From this the decision to remove all attributes and go directly to magic was determined.

Discuss.

 

[Jaesun]

Discuss.

Not much to discuss. Shitty console action game is shitty.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

lingwe you need to think outside the box like a visionary

you don't need stats if you can roleplay having the appropriate amount of stats for your character in the first place

skyrim will be the game that lets you be your character instead of being restricted by artificial numbers on a so called 'character sheet' that doesn't even exist and shouldn't

why has it taken rpgs so long to realise this

ffs

 

[Raapys]

Shitty developer is shitty, too. So yeah, why care?

 

[Micmu]

I think that's because they devoured ID software.

ID did it right almost two decades ago. All you need is health and ammo.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

ID did it right almost two decades ago. All you need is health and ammo.

[Magicka] So you're saying Skyrim is an old school game?

 

[Blind Eye]

OMG you guys. It's the ULTIMATE LARP simulator. I get what they're trying to do now. I cannot wait to go hiking and pretending, and hiking and pretending, and hiking and pretending. It's going to be so awesome.

 

[Johannes]

You don't need stats when you can be dragonborn.

 

[sea]

Well, I mean, it's not like stats influenced anything in Oblivion save for a few pretty minor aspects, like movement speed. Your primary combat skill was largely the only thing that mattered in the game, and that was as easy and fast to increase as you'd expect, so everything else was kind of just filler. The issue isn't so much the stats they had, but the degree of their effect: Oblivion probably would have been a significantly deeper and more fun game if they had simply increased the effect of stats on the gameplay beyond what sorts of weapons you get to use. Stuff like having to choose from the start whether to be a dumb, slow warrior that can beat anything to death with his bare fists, or a thief who specialises in using poisons to kill her targets, or whatever... you can try it in Oblivion, but 90% of the difference in play-style comes down to your own role-playing rather than stats.

As it stands, though, they've (without saying anything directly) just cut to the chase and admitted they want to make dumb action-fantasy games. I would have preferred something in the other direction, obviously, an action RPG with real character development and a compelling world to explore, with tons of replayability, but, well, there's really nothing wrong with making a dumb action-fantasy game, so long as you're honest and up-front about it. I'm sure Skyrim will be a jolly-good hiking simulator, featuring all sorts of retarded NPCs to butcher for looking turning their randomly generated faces the wrong way, and I get to dress up like a Viking while doing so, which I admit is kind of like sex for me. Nothing wrong with simple pleasures. Chances are it'll once again be held back by misplaced ambition, but even Oblivion had its occasional moments of silly fun and the odd semi-interesting quest.

Of course, Bethesda aren't doing that, and are trying to sell Skyrim as the rebirth (or evolution, or whatever the fuck is the word these days) of the RPG, and that's largely what I object to, as well as the gaming press' inability to call them out on it in any significant way. Fuck, if they would just cut the hyperbole and the bullshit, I could actually take them seriously as developers. Just own up to what you're doing, Bethesda, be comfortable with it, and stop trying to jury-rig this old RPG franchise into an action game framework, all the while insisting that you're still catering to the original fans. Even you guys have the potential and talent to make great games when you aren't hamstrung by your own lack of focus and dumb design decisions. Just pick a genre, stick with it, and run with it, instead of perpetuating this half-assed bastard fusion of both. At least in that respect, I feel like Skyrim is a slight improvement over Bethesda's recent games.

 

[bhlaab]

What elder scrolls game ever had skill checks in dialogue? There's no reason skills can't do all of those things you just said. The reason to have attributes and skills is so that one can affect the other or both can affect each other. If that isn't happening, which is entirely viable, then there's no point in having both.

Now if they do the same shit for Fallout 4 and get rid of SPECIAL I'll be super pissed, of course.

 

[Big Nick Digger]

The attributes have always been shit in TES. They were a problem in oblivion with the level scaling and having to manipulate the leveling system or get left behind.

 

[dextermorgan]

Based on real life experiences Todd came to the conclusion that intelligence is not an attribute required for success and thus absolutely unnecessary.

 

[Raapys]

I watched that Bethesda-tour which had you following him around, and he actually struck me as a decent enough guy. Could be he just has bad taste, or it could be that he doesn't really mean what he says.

I mean, let's face it. How much power does anyone here really think Todd has? I suspect the larger decisions on how the games will play out are made by the suits and the guys in marketing, not the nerds actually developing the games.

 

[Joghurt]

haha you know what I just realized? If Howard thinks that stats are useless then it pretty much means that Fallout 4 won't have them too hahahaha ow wow

:D

 

[odrzut]

Well I can agree that inteligence is stupid stat, because we already rely on player (not character) intelligence for choosing the best dialog option, what to do next to complete quest, tactical fighting, or decisions like which armor should my character wear.

So stupid player playing intelligent character will be stupid anyway, but he will have more mana/better dialog options to choose from. And he still won't guess who the murderer was.

It's not like there is the best set of attributes. I prefer games that have clear division between things that depends on player abilities, and things that depends on characters abilities. Action RPGs blur this division, because your character fighting abilities depends on both your reflex, and your character attributes. This bothers some people, some don't mind.

I would prefer system that depends only on player reflex, or system that depends only on characters abilities.

Some people prefer that there is an attribute for everything, and player only decision is into which attribute assign my new character points. So if this was taken to the limit combat would look like this: "you encountered 10 orcs, your superior tactical abilities combined with your better equipment and experience allowed you to win this fight without problems. Loot is: ...".

 

[Mastermind]

The attributes have always been shit in TES.

Not in Arena. Arena didn't even have any skills, it was all attribute/class/race driven, and gaining level/attributes were the only ways to grow.

 

[Mastermind]

or system that depends only on characters abilities.

Also known as a movie. Try jrpgs.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

So stupid player playing intelligent character will be stupid anyway, but he will have more mana/better dialog options to choose from. And he still won't guess who the murderer was.

Easily circumvented by inserting your character's deductions about a situation or person into the game itself. This can also be seen as casual mode hintbook compass for nextgen faggots but this is catering for stupid players that we're talking about.

Invariably if there are no mechanical benefits for playing an intelligent character the powergamer will just pick the power of being unable to lose in fights and overcome the puzzles with aspergers anyway.

face it bro you can't simulate roleplaying

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

I can see where he's coming from with his "attributes are redundant" schtick if you consider that before they decided to cut attributes they had already gone with some galsiah-ish character development system where attribute gains came automatically from skill levelling, removing player choice from the equation and thus making them little more than pseudo-derived stats.
Instead of having a system where players chose attributes , attributes influenced derived stats and worked together with player-chosen skills(morrowind, ob), you'd have one where players chose skills, skills had in-game effects but also automatically derived attributes(with no-ingame effects of their own) and then attributes automatically derived other stats(carry weight, speed, etc) so for practical purposes attributes did become a useless stat layer the player has no control over. Better off giving the player the choice of how to influence things upon level-up by letting him chose directly which derived stats to alter through health/magica/fatigue picks and skill perks.

Why they went with that kind of a levelling system to begin with possibly has to do with feedback on the consistently broken attribute gain system and the fact that they don't want the player to spend character development points on any stat without having a good understanding of its relevance in the game world.

Personally I would've just used a 1-5 or 1-10 scale for attributes, with each attribute value level being clearly distinct from the previous one as in VTM(level x strength - you can lift a motorcycle, level x+1 strength- you can lift a car), attributes contributing to skill values as in fallout and skill perks requiring certain attribute values(can't have a master of two handed hammers with 1 strength).

 

[Oesophagus]

Now if they do the same shit for Fallout 4 and get rid of SPECIAL I'll be super pissed, of course.

Well, they will. They've got a large fanbase now, so you know all the retards who loved F3 will buy F4 whatever shape it takes. Add to that GOTY 10/10 ratings, and there's absolutely no reason why Todd should bother with stats or anything remotely RPG. Just not necessary. Fallout 4 will be a console FPS (even more than F3 was)

 

[Xi]

With the removal of stats (or huge reduction of their role), the deciding factor will be the perks. If they are good, it might still have an interesting level system. If they are bad, the game will be shit (as an RPG). It will be an open world gauntlet style game, or an open-world Diablo (but much shittier)!

Stats should have always been a static choice on level up. You get +3, +2, and +1 to place into your stat pool. The "on use" stat gain system was fucking retarded in all TES games. Instead of removing them, they should have had Strength increase damage, for instance. But sense they made skills increase damage, they trivialized what all the stats do. So, in the end there reduction in one area lead to reductions in other areas.

 

[odrzut]

Stats should have always been a static choice on level up. You get +3, +2, and +1 to place into your stat pool. The "on use" stat gain system was fucking retarded in all TES games.

Improve the stat on use system was working great in Betrayal at Krondor IMHO. Many people seems to agree.

 

[Raapys]

Stats should have always been a static choice on level up. You get +3, +2, and +1 to place into your stat pool. The "on use" stat gain system was fucking retarded in all TES games.

Improve the stat on use system was working great in Betrayal at Krondor IMHO. Many people seems to agree.

Yeah, the idea's good. It also works very well in games like JA2. Its implementation is what's wrong in the TES games.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Imagine if Bethesda developed JA3.

 

[bhlaab]

Now if they do the same shit for Fallout 4 and get rid of SPECIAL I'll be super pissed, of course.

Well, they will. They've got a large fanbase now, so you know all the retards who loved F3 will buy F4 whatever shape it takes. Add to that GOTY 10/10 ratings, and there's absolutely no reason why Todd should bother with stats or anything remotely RPG. Just not necessary. Fallout 4 will be a console FPS (even more than F3 was)

I'm not convinced they could get away with that. Not yet anyway.