How do they get out of the starting area to do these few non combat things without having to combat anything? I mean morrowind dropped you off in town but Oblivion you had to escape from the dungeon soooo, how?

The fact that enemies in Oblivion do disrupted by hits alone can turn the reviewers article to utter rubbish.

you could easily sneak/flee your way through it it

Yes it is, among other things. You don't advance your character by picking flowers, running from boars and reciting poetry. Combat is on the top three things of what TES is about, along with exploration and freedom to choose your path.

They do, but poorly and rarely.

Seriously, I can't believe people would actually throw out such an excuse. Virtually every RPG game is based around combat as one of its major foundations, as it is the main vehicle of, and reason for character progression.

you could easily advance your charecter by picking flowers and running away. Alchemy, Athletic, Acrobatics, Speechcraft, Merchantile, Illusion, Mystism, Sneak. There's a non combat charecter (probably a thief) that will have no problem leveling up or making money.

add security to that

for me there have only ever been two fantasy games that got combat right: Severance Blade of Darkness, and Die by the Sword.
Severance had a "lock on" with block and combo moves/special attacks, as well as some really cool hit detection and amputations etc
Die by the Swords method was, simply put, mental! you actually had to swing the charcters arm with your mouse to perform the attacks! took alot of practice but ended up being great fun!
both games were fairly linear though.
Skyrim,like Oblivion isnt "about" combat...but combat is integral to the games! I doubt it will be horrible; but then i didnt find Oblivions combat horrible. I also doubt it will be a vastly improved system from oblivions, but it should be better.

Skyrims combat is quite realistic, I dont find the whole ''Triple Back/Front flips and mega 360 degree back flip ultra sword spins all that cool. It kinda just punches gravity in the face lol Anyway, when it comes to reactions in a game just look at COD (Extremely Combat Based). You can be shot an infinate ammount of times and not die FACT, and all your guy would do is kick back a tiny bit without ANY lasting injury. Dont forget the knifing on that damn game, I wont even bother anyway! enough about FPS lol.
When it comes to skyrims combat I have to give it a 7/10 pretty good IMO Finishing moves, Small knock back, Charge attacks with swords does make enemies stumble etc. TES serires prefers to base thier games on Quests, AI, Environments, Freedom to do whatever, interaction and so on. There combat isnt there biggest concern.

Heres a list of RPG's that concentrated on combat a bit too much:

- Two worlds 2 apart from combat it is vommit piss, what did it win? Exactly. It's highest critic rating was 8/10.
- Dead Island, >IMO< it is the most overated game of 2011, it was a fairly big dispointment. My brothers didnt shut up about it before launch and bam, they havn't even wispeared a thing about it after about 2 weeks of playing it lol.
- Arcania Gothic 4 combat was pretty damn good, other then that. Well lets just say it really punched every game ever made in the face. Piece of #$%@ !!!
- TWO WORLDS 1 <<< Do not play. :S :S :S
- Sacred 2 had awesome combat but, the story was pathetic, interaction with NPC's and so on svcked and dont forget the ammount of hostility in that damn game. I undertsand it's a hack N Slash RPG but that just supports my opinion on Combat based RPG's. On the other hand multiplayer was pretty decent.
World of Warcraft, pretty much combat based but the combat is'nt the best. Too many negatives in that game, glad I quit a long time ago.

I could list more but I think I may piss off more people then I may have already haha. Sorry, don't flame

Conclusion: about half of RPG games that concentrate on Combat too much get side tract from the other important stuff Like Quests, AI, Environment and soooo on. So Dont worry about combat.

NOTE: I am not saying Combat Based RPG's are bad, I am just trying to support why Skyrim's combat isnt important. And that combat should'nt be such a huge conern.

Athletic, Acrobatics, Merchantile and Mystism have been removed and good luck picking flowers with dragons swooping down to eat your face.

All I can say is apparently I got the good version of Oblivion because after probably a 100 hours of gameplay , I haven't had most of the problems decribed by people here. Also,now admittedly I have a mod that improves combat Ai, but just mindless button mashing gets me killed pretty fast. Actually I enjoy o\Oblivion's combat over many other games. The previews of Skyrim look pretty good to me.

Its everyone's money of course but it seems silly to cancel over single negative review. There are lots of idiot reviewers out there.

This is one persons opinion from observing the Leaked footage, not actualy playing the game themselves, so I dont think you should pay to much attention, and wait for someone with proper hands on experience to gve some insight

was reffering to TES in general. and again you can easily flee to the safety of a town to continue your role play

*edit*

walled cities of course

There is no athletics/acrobatics, spechcraft is merged with mercantile, the main purpose of alchemy is for combat-aiding potions/poisons, and illusion is half about combat, mysticism was removed. Claiming that combat is not important is ludicrous. Even the roleplayer who creates a peaceful character will most likely have at some other point a character that fights. I roleplay fighters myself. This peaceful style is something 99.5% of players don't take part into.

I don't care about combat ... Morrowind owns any RPG that has ten times better combat ... RPG is about world, not fighting... Skyrim has a decent combat system

I'm on your side that TES isn't about combat but you're not going to win this argument. Clearly the character development is largely designed around becomming better at combat. You're able to be a warrior, mage or thief (or mixture) all are proffesions dealing with fighting.

But what I think we'll agree on is that combat isnt all important in TES. Combat is a means to an end. It would be cool if combat is modern and enjoyable but if it isn't then it isn't a deal-breaker. You'll still have the other pillars that make the foundation of TES: exploration, guilds/quests and character development.

To those that cared much for combat then Skyrim might not be a game for you afterall. However if you did manage to enjoy previous TES titles despite their poor combat, I dont see why Skyrim should be any different. Oblivion's combat was poor and old in 2006 as well, Arx Fatalis had already done a better job in 2002. Skyrim atleast has perks and different combat moves so even though combat might be poor, atleast there is some diversity.

hey man. i wanted to PM you but i think your inbox is full. care to make a bit of space?
i'd like to discuss the subject with ya.

People always criticize me for comparing Skyrim to older TES games, and tell me to take it as "a brand new game". But it's the reason I am not disappointed at the combat, yet I am disappointed by everything they removed from previous games. Comparison is not all bad.

Following that logic you can play any game avoiding combat, if you sit in town and talk to NPCs for hundreds of hours. Resorting to a playstyle that will prevent you from accessing 80% ofthe game's content is not freedom anymore, it's plain refusal to accept you will not get too far by bribing bears and cartwheeling around dragons.

Totally agree.

How is that statement pathetic? Get out of here bro. Your pathetic for even calling someone pathetic over a video game.

Aye.

Then this is nothing but the continuation of repetitive and pointless past threads about combat.

Looks fine to me *shrug*

To quest you have to combat, to explore your going to need to combat and to level up your going to need to combat. With combat in your face all the time why shouldnt it look and react good... Oh I'm sure 99% of you havnt read this entire thread, I have not once siad
1. I dont like TES because of poor combat
2. Skyrims combat looks bad
3. This game is about nothing but combat
With that being siad more than half of the gameplay deals with or directly tied to combating. Do I love TES? hell yeah! Do I think TES combat svcks? nope. I'm only discussing my point with the peeps who keep chanting "Tes isnt about combat".