Attributes are "governing" skills... Huh?

[Johnny Casey]

(First off, I'm not an English native, so please bear with me if I wrote anything weird in regards of English language.)

I always thought this phrasing is weird in TES games. Attributes governing certain series of skills, like Strength governing Blade, Blunt, H2H in Oblivion. Strength affects melee damage, so that's one way to 'govern' those skills, but wouldn't it be the other way around? If you think about the whole leveling system in this game, you have to use a certain series of skills to increase the associated attribute on next level ups. So to me, it makes more sense that Strength is governed by Blade, Blunt, H2H in Oblivion, rather than what it's said in the game.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting the word 'govern'.

[Wai]

This is one of the idiosyncrasies of the English language. There is the usual meaning of "in charge of" and in this case the less common meaning of "the common link between".

[theo]

It's potato tomato, but another way attributes govern skills is that you cannot train a skill (at trainers) more than governing attribute allows. Which isn't that relevant in Oblivion but was a big deal in Morrowind.
In a sense attributes in Oblivion don't govern anything because the bonuses they provide are miniscule

[lonetrav]

Put simply, attributes are the "what", skills are the "how well" (similar to "effective" and "efficient"). Skills get better by using them, and the number of improvements of all major skills "governed by" (belonging to) an attribute determine the growth of this attribute when you level up (should you decide to choose the attribute for increase - you can increase up to 3 attributes when you level up).
What it means numerically is described in the Oblivion section of uesp.net. That the bonuses atttributes provide are "miniscule" (see theo's post above) is his opinion (and, I suppose, a consequence of the way he plays) - it's not shared by everyone. For example, better strength lets you carry more. Whether or not this matters for your character depends on how you play. If it matters for your character, the bonus has a lot of value. Similarly, endurance improves health. It may not matter for everyone, but if it matters, it's valuable. That you can achieve the same or a similar effect (for carrying potential or health) in different ways, too, is true, but not relevant if you are not interested in these other ways.

[Wai]

Originally posted by theo:

................
In a sense attributes in Oblivion don't govern anything because the bonuses they provide are miniscule

Maybe for other attributes, but, Endurance, because it cumulatively increases health should not be ignored if you are playing a weaker character.

You do not have to perfect level, just make sure that you level well in endurance at the start of play and until you have maximised endurance. You can do this easily and with little effort if you start with a strong character (65 points of Endurance.) Most females, for example, for some inexplicable reason, start with an Endurance level lower than their male counterparts and will usually have only 30 points of endurance initially. Sure, you can drink potions and use other magic options to compensate for lower health, but, it gets irritating and immersion breaking if you must for example carry and keep drinking restore health potions during combat.

See the chart on this page if you are interested in how endurance cumulatively increases health:- https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Endurance

[owen8964]

English is a very easy language to learn but incredibly difficult to master. Few native speakers manage it! Context is very important.

To govern is to rule over. In this case Strength rules over Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. It is the master, served by Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. You cannot increase Strength if you do not increase those skills.

(If it's of interest, English is three languages which had a train smash between about 410 AD when the Romans left and the Saxons started arriving and about 1300 when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales: Anglo-Saxon, Viking-Scandinavian, and Norman French).

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by owen8964:

To govern is to rule over. In this case Strength rules over Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. It is the master, served by Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. You cannot increase Strength if you do not increase those skills.

But how does that make Strength to be the 'master' of those skills? The skills hold the initiative to determine whether the attribute could be increased or not. They got the upper hand in a sense of statistics. Wouldn't that make the skills to govern the attributes?

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Wai:

Originally posted by theo:

................
In a sense attributes in Oblivion don't govern anything because the bonuses they provide are miniscule

Maybe for other attributes, but, Endurance, because it cumulatively increases health should not be ignored if you are playing a weaker character.

You do not have to perfect level, just make sure that you level well in endurance at the start of play and until you have maximised endurance. You can do this easily and with little effort if you start with a strong character (65 points of Endurance.) Most females, for example, for some inexplicable reason, start with an Endurance level lower than their male counterparts and will usually have only 30 points of endurance initially. Sure, you can drink potions and use other magic options to compensate for lower health, but, it gets irritating and immersion breaking if you must for example carry and keep drinking restore health potions during combat.

See the chart on this page if you are interested in how endurance cumulatively increases health:- https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Endurance

Endurance at character creation is far more important than increasing endurance through level ups.

I did the math in another thread awhile back, but basically the difference in not leveling up endurance for 30 levels vs leveling up +5 every level is ultimately miniscule. You get 1/10th of your total endurance on level ups for HP increase, whereas your initial hp is 2x starting endurance so that's far more impactful. If you have a high starting endurance (like 50), you can ignore endurance all the way through and still have more HP than someone who started with 30 endurance and got +5 every level up by level 30.

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by owen8964:

To govern is to rule over. In this case Strength rules over Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. It is the master, served by Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. You cannot increase Strength if you do not increase those skills.

But how does that make Strength to be the 'master' of those skills? The skills hold the initiative to determine whether the attribute could be increased or not. They got the upper hand in a sense of statistics. Wouldn't that make the skills to govern the attributes?

You can't train a skill above its governing attribute, that would be the biggest factor.

And oblivion severely watered down attributes, but in morrowind for example if you increased intelligence, you would increase the success rate of any intelligence based skill. It is a regular tactic in morrowind to fortify intelligence to high levels (1000+) and then enchanting for a hundred percent success rate regardless what your enchanting level is.
Likewise increasing intelligence would also increase your success rate with lock picking as that skill is also governed by intelligence.

In oblivion they kept the language and general idea, but the attributes are so much more meaningless that the distinction doesn't really matter

[joeball123]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Endurance at character creation is far more important than increasing endurance through level ups.

I did the math in another thread awhile back, but basically the difference in not leveling up endurance for 30 levels vs leveling up +5 every level is ultimately miniscule. You get 1/10th of your total endurance on level ups for HP increase, whereas your initial hp is 2x starting endurance so that's far more impactful. If you have a high starting endurance (like 50), you can ignore endurance all the way through and still have more HP than someone who started with 30 endurance and got +5 every level up by level 30.

There are two problems with your math which render your conclusion incorrect:
1. A character who starts at 50 Endurance and never increases it will have gained 145 HP from level-up bonuses by level 30 whereas a character who starts at 30 Endurance and increases it by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will have gained 234 HP from level-up bonuses by level 30. 100 + 145 = 245, 60 + 234 = 294, and last I checked 294 > 245, so even if base HP never changes the character who started at 50 Endurance and never increased it will have less HP by level 30 than the character who started with 30 Endurance and increased it by 5 at every level until reaching 100 Endurance.

2. In Oblivion, the player character's base HP - i.e. the 2*[Endurance] part of it - gets recomputed every time the player character's Endurance changes, including as a result of Drain, Fortify, and Absorb Endurance effects. A character who starts at 30 Endurance and increases Endurance by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will have more HP by level 6 than a character who started at 50 Endurance and never increases it (55*2 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 129 HP for the former, 50*2 + 5*5 = 125 HP for the latter). By level 30, a character who started at 30 Endurance and increased it by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will actually have 434 HP - almost 80% more than the character who started at 50 Endurance and never increased their Endurance.

[Johnny Casey]

Originally posted by psychotron666:

in morrowind for example if you increased intelligence, you would increase the success rate of any intelligence based skill. It is a regular tactic in morrowind to fortify intelligence to high levels (1000+) and then enchanting for a hundred percent success rate regardless what your enchanting level is. Likewise increasing intelligence would also increase your success rate with lock picking as that skill is also governed by intelligence.

Right. Now it makes more sense.

[psychotron666]

Originally posted by joeball123:

Originally posted by psychotron666:

Endurance at character creation is far more important than increasing endurance through level ups.

I did the math in another thread awhile back, but basically the difference in not leveling up endurance for 30 levels vs leveling up +5 every level is ultimately miniscule. You get 1/10th of your total endurance on level ups for HP increase, whereas your initial hp is 2x starting endurance so that's far more impactful. If you have a high starting endurance (like 50), you can ignore endurance all the way through and still have more HP than someone who started with 30 endurance and got +5 every level up by level 30.

There are two problems with your math which render your conclusion incorrect:
1. A character who starts at 50 Endurance and never increases it will have gained 145 HP from level-up bonuses by level 30 whereas a character who starts at 30 Endurance and increases it by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will have gained 234 HP from level-up bonuses by level 30. 100 + 145 = 245, 60 + 234 = 294, and last I checked 294 > 245, so even if base HP never changes the character who started at 50 Endurance and never increased it will have less HP by level 30 than the character who started with 30 Endurance and increased it by 5 at every level until reaching 100 Endurance.

2. In Oblivion, the player character's base HP - i.e. the 2*[Endurance] part of it - gets recomputed every time the player character's Endurance changes, including as a result of Drain, Fortify, and Absorb Endurance effects. A character who starts at 30 Endurance and increases Endurance by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will have more HP by level 6 than a character who started at 50 Endurance and never increases it (55*2 + 3 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 129 HP for the former, 50*2 + 5*5 = 125 HP for the latter). By level 30, a character who started at 30 Endurance and increased it by 5 at every level-up until reaching 100 Endurance will actually have 434 HP - almost 80% more than the character who started at 50 Endurance and never increased their Endurance.

I forgot oblivion did recalculate base health every time you increased it on level up, this is completely different than morrowind which doesn't retroactively recalculate base health (and where I was getting my math from)

In which case, the 50 endurance character can later increase endurance (like after level 30 they finally start to increase it) or get +1 or +2 endurance on level ups in that time, and still be about the same or barely be behind the optimized character who leveled up misc skills every level to get +5, and even then fortify endurance enchants would easily make up any difference if you cared (at high levels your base health really doesn't matter much anymore, you're usually swimming in potions and have max armour rating and damage reduction that survival isn't an issue anymore).

[theo]

Who ever creates a glass cannon character and tries to tank with it

[owen8964]

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

Originally posted by owen8964:

To govern is to rule over. In this case Strength rules over Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. It is the master, served by Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand. You cannot increase Strength if you do not increase those skills.

But how does that make Strength to be the 'master' of those skills? The skills hold the initiative to determine whether the attribute could be increased or not. They got the upper hand in a sense of statistics. Wouldn't that make the skills to govern the attributes?

Yes, either would be equally valid in itself - but the authors chose to do it this way. As I said, context is very important and the context here is the development from Morrowind.

(In a wider sense, you can learn a lot about English social history from the language. Eg, ever wondered why we eat beef, not cow? Because the Anglo-Saxon peasant raised the cow but it was eaten by the Norman-French Lord who called it Boeuf, or Beef, same with sheep and mutton/mouton and pig/porc/pork; or the way the word "want" has changed its meaning from the original "lack" to the modern "desire" (here I'm guessing) as poverty became less of a widespread issue. I picked this Eng Lang stuff up as a minor part of my Eng Lit degree and this is about the limit of my knowledge. You can also find out a lot about where you live and how it started by looking at the name. edit: Apologies for the digression: button pressed.)

[Melkolf]

Originally posted by owen8964:

Originally posted by Johnny Casey:

But how does that make Strength to be the 'master' of those skills? The skills hold the initiative to determine whether the attribute could be increased or not. They got the upper hand in a sense of statistics. Wouldn't that make the skills to govern the attributes?

Yes, either would be equally valid in itself - but the authors chose to do it this way. As I said, context is very important and the context here is the development from Morrowind.

Yes, context is important but 'development from Morrowind'? More like dumbing down, if you understand the context at all.

Maybe your Eng Lit degree didn't cover the connotation that 'to develop' means to broaden, to increase, to improve, not to dumb down, to decrease, to impoverish. However, as a native English speaker I forgive your ignorance in these nuances in which is generally agreed to be one of the hardest languages to learn and get correct for those from non-English speaking backgrounds. And please bear in mind those in the USA don't speak or write English, they speak and write a colonial abortion of it.

[lonetrav]

Originally posted by Melkolf:

Yes, context is important but 'development from Morrowind'? More like dumbing down ...

First of all, to call Obliivon's leveling system "dumbed down" compared with Morrowind's is an opinion, and your whole point that "to develop" has been used inappropriately is based on this opinion. I call it "pseudo-scientific" - also an opinion, I admit.

Secondly, if you compare the role-playing systems of Morrowind and Oblivion (actually, you could start with Arena and Daggerfall, and add Skyrim tü the end of the sequence), you'll notice an interesting evolution. Without going into details (would be far beyond the scope of a forum post), you could see what the designers changed based on the experiences and player feedback they received for the predecessor(s).
You may not like the result (it always takes business considerations and perceived player preferences into account), but you will find it hard not to call Oblivion's system an evolution of Morrowind's, and the process to move from one to the other a "development" (and, in my opinion, an interesting one).
For me, It's a rare opportunity to watch such a system develop from its origins (Arena) to the (for me) final shape (Skyrim - I don't know Starwind or Elder Scrolls Online).
Let me repeat that this is not about liking or disliking the development or the result, but about watching the process, the development.

Finally, I'd be interested in learning what exactly you mean by "dumbing down" - which not only means some kind of "worse", but also some kind of "making stupid" (and overall simplifying, I suppose). If at all, I'd call Oblivion's system more complex when you look at its design (playing is a different story - you can play (successfully) and enjoy both Morrowind and Oblivion without fully understanding the leveling system, by just watching carefully and using common sense).

PS: I'm not a native English speaker, so my command of the English language may be lacking, compared with your standards.