A lot of people who are complaining about attributes don't seem to understand human potential. You can't get smarter from reading a book, you have base IQ and that never changes. Yes you can learn things you can increase your "knowledge" but you can't become smarter by reading. Same goes for anything. You can increase your physical endurance, your stamina allowing you to run further, but you can't go beyond your physical limitations. You can only build on what you have. Average person will never be an Olympic athlete. I like to look at my character in Skyrim as having reached his peak. He's the best he can be, but through training skills he can become more deadly. So he can hone his swords blade to make it the most deadly it can be, he can learn to use that weapon efficiently by attacking weak points and such. Increasing the chance with his stamina and performing power attacks. He doesn't get any stronger because he's already in his peak condition. He's used to hacking away with a sword so he doesn't gain any benefit from it. Just like working out, unless you do things to change your routine, you're not going to gain any new muscle mass(Keep in mind that muscle mass doesn't mean added strength. Body builders are twice as big as power lifters yet can't lift the same amount of weight). In the end the system in Skyrim might be gimped for a lot of fans of previous games, but it makes more sense. It's more story driven then a RPG grind fest. If you train you'll be effective against most enemies, you will find them easier to deal with over time. Still run into enemies that are superior and will make you fight for your life. Just like you would in reality. Yes this game isn't real and for those of you that prefer a completely fantasy experience, Skyrim isn't doing it for you. Doesn't mean you need to make Thread after thread after thread about why the game doesn't do it for you and you want people to think like you. This is an opinion thread, and like anything of this sort should be taken with a grain of salt.