I've tried Horse Combat a few times, with a few weapons now. Archery, although difficult, is surprisingly the least awkward to me, since you still have your crosshair. Melee combat, however, I find it very difficult to land a hit. Although it has its positives, like your horse absorbing the damage from most melee attacks, and not having to get off your horse to kill an enemy, it takes quite a few awkward swings of my weapons, and many wasted arrows before I accomplish anything. Anyone else feel this way, or is it just me who isn't adjusted to horse combat?

Yes unless your are going 1 mile an hour and the enemy isn't moving it is almost impossible to kill something on horseback,

Yea it does feel akward, wish it felt more like Mount and Blade's horse combat.

Plus, there is no way (to my knowledge) to control what direction you swing your weapon. So 9/10 times I'll end up swinging hopelessly at my right side attempting to hit an enemy to my left. But when I use archery on the horse I feel like Attila the Hun, so that's a positive.

RT is for swinging you weapon to the right, and LT to the left.

I did not know that. Thank you very much for this information.

It is awkward to hit things, mainly due to the horses clunky movements in tight spaces. It can be bothersome trying to get an enemy in the right spot so you can hit them with melee.

I haven't had any problems with hit detection. Just the opposite, actually. If I'm even anywhere close to something I'm trying to hit in melee - if It's on the side I'm swinging at.. It's getting hit.

The horse absorbing some of the damage you take is what gets me. I have stopped using it entirely because without fail - every single time - my horse'll die in one or two swings or arrows.

Strange, I feel the horse combat is very usable and I haven't really had any trouble with it. I still need more training using ranged weapons from horse, but I am usually able to hit my enemies when I am using a melee weapon, even if I am galloping(yes, you can do both at the same time ).

Agreed. It's extremely hard for me to get a successful hit with melee while on horseback, but with archery it's freaking easy

It's even worse with daggers since it's a short weapon. They are my main weapons and I don't bother switching, I don't carry any other melee weapons either. It's IMO easier to just keep riding and ignore whatever is trying to kill me.

It's something that you have to get used to. I'm used to mounted combat in Darkfall Online and the "Deadly Reflexes" mod for Oblivion, so mounted combat in Skyrim is quite easy for me.

With melee weapons? Yes but with ranged weapons? Not so much I rather like it takes a bit of getting used to.

I hate the bug that makes your crosshairs not show up while doing mounted combat. It makes ranged shooting impossible.

Its seems useful but needs some modifications. Are there any death blows you can do while on horseback?

Can you imagine hitting a target with a dagger from horseback? That'd be hard (and likely to get you pulled / knocked off the horse).

Horse Combat is awesome and I love the glitch of a chance to randomly 'throw' someone up high in the air... And you rly need to learn how to fight on horse back.. Didn't took learn for me to get use to it.. As for ranging, slow-motion helps a lot.

The implementation is flawed. I appreciate it being added into the game, but they can flesh it out much better than it currently is. Why is dual weilding not allowed? I would love to be able to run a horse straight through a mess of bandits while swinging two war axes on each side. Or how about magic, no firebolts or restoration spells on horseback? Come on, man!

Archery works decently, but the cone of view in which you can fire arrows is too narrow. For instance, when I'm riding in wide circles around a mammoth or something, even with the crosshair right over the enemy my character is shooting his arrows straight ahead of his horse. Its like, can't he just turn his torso a little more and actually shoot where the crosshair is pointing?

This happened to me, though I saved shortly after and quit ... Does it comeback after you get off and get back on ? Or what?

It works very well for me. What I do (when in melee):

I hold the attack button so that my character prepares a powerattack
I sprint towards an enemy with my attack prepared
Crucial: I don't try to eat the opponent with my horse. The idea is to leave the opponent at your left-side / right-side and then release the attack button to perform the swing.

The patch for mounted combat came out just a few days ago for us Frenchies, I tried it for a minute or so and the lack of a crosshair was a bit annoying to be honest ... I didn't have a bow at hand so I didn't try but I hope there is a crosshair for archery related equipment because otherwise sniping on my horse might get a bit difficult + it will need a bit of practice to aim, steer the horse and draw the arrow at the same time !

Same here, I find it simple for melee but I need more practice at archery from horseback. I dont run around in circles though, I do laps back and forth using the sprint. Line em up, attack, sprint away, turn 180, rinse repeat. Its only tricky like this when its beasts like sabercats who are fast and can keep up, though if you are smart and attack at oblique angles the AI can get funky and attack mid air each time trying to hit you.

Though there was one fight where a sabercat managed to kill my horse while I was sprinting with it. Pretty funny to see my horse die and my character take a nosedive to faceplant the cobblestones in a stun animation.

Of course its awkard, there is no chance they will do it properly since they are just adding bunch of things that arent even 50% finished

Yes.

Oh, you mean in the game, not IRL? Nah. It's as good as it gets. Horse combat isn't exactly graceful under normal circumstances.

Horses are awkward,mounting combat could have been great with an improved horse's attitude
However, a little step in the right direction for once...