But it is not impossible is it? Those wanting a challenge from the game, play as a pacifist, it will make you sweat.

True, Skyrim does offer less peaceful alternatives than previous games. This could be improved upon. Even then, I can still play a character that never has to fight and have an enjoyable game. I won't be able to do as much, but then a pure fighter can't do everything either.

Not sure when I said combat is the only option. Pretty sure I've been saying that combat is the major option though. Since it is. Considering that most all of the skills are linked to combat either directly or indirectly. And that nearly all of the quests put you in a situation where combat can occur. And that simply walking around the world can also put you in situations that can occur.

You're trying to put the "other" option as high on the priority list as combat. That's simply just not true because nearly the entire game is linked to combat, either engaging in or avoiding, in some fashion or another.

First you tell me that combat is an option, then you tell me it's forced on you, then you come back and say it's an option again?

Hit location makes sense for a game like FO3 with all its hitscan weapons. But needing to hit spastic NPCs in the head with a slow moving, arcing arrow, every single time, would quickly get frustrating.

That would be on my favourites. I love ice and the idea of being able to shatter something to pieces would be awesome. I'd also like to frieze the enemies legs so they can't move and either smash their legs into pieces or just beat the rest of their body to death.

combat greatness goes as such:

Skyrim>>Oblivion>Morrowind

location greatness goes as such:

Morrowind>Skyrim>My toilet droppings>>>Oblivion

bull**** meter goes as such:

Oblivion>>>>Morrowind>Skyrim

Your words, not mine.

CCNA, you're just wrong in this debate. Combat is a primary focus of the TES series, period. This isn't Minecraft. There isn't a mode where you can turn off enemies if you never want to see them. This is an open world RPG that has combat built in as a major incentive to the game, period. You're really completely ignoring that concept of design by continuously saying that the "other" option is as important as the combat option. It's not. Playing as a full fledged merchant or pacifist is possible, but as you said yourself "you won't be able to do as much." Playing as a character who engages in combat can do far more in the game than a player who doesn't. That's just the cold hard truth.

Asking for locational damage is the same with asking for guns, grenade launchers and aliens for some people. And they mean it and they call it sarcasm???



Mount&Blade has locational damage and it has character skills too. Arrows spread with low skill so you couldn't hit people in their heads easily at low levels.

Anyways, locational damage would be a great addition, it would help balancing and break the chopsticks style of TES combat. I mean why do you always think about one-shotting. Locational damage can be used for the opposite: to prevent one-shotting. It is not easy to hit a dragon's weak spot while it is flying.

Two words: Muffle and Invisibility. Voila! The perfect mix for never needing to fight anyone, ever... Well, actually you need to throw Lockpicking in there as well, or Pickpocket to steal keys.

As for the OP, remember that what launched the series into mainstream was Morrowind (yep, without it, Bethesda would have been a much different company now). It's combat system was, quite frankly, plain rubbish, yet that did not diminish the game in any regard. There's your proof on paper that combat has never been the central part of TES.

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone."

people are already requesting crossbows, a weapon 99% of Morrowind players never used, but somehow still want as an option (I assume for novelty value). but why bother? after that's added they'll still be "lol spears plz" and when that's added they'll ramble on about how Bethesda is too focused on weapons and not enough on "T3H MAGIC SYSTEM". it literally never ends.

It's like they want some sort of balance between everything TES has given us or something...

Strange, I know.

NO Go play Morrowind and then say that Skyrim has bad combat even oblivion isn′t bad

Oblivion's combat system isn't terrible, it's just that the horrid level-scaling ruins any satisfaction that game could have potentially had.

and yes, Morrowind's combat is pretty abysmal, up until you hit around level 20+ and no longer have to rely on it's shoddy hitbox.

They didnt add locational samage simply because the casual gamer would cry when there warrior/mage/thief char got hit iin the hand and couldnt use a weapon/spell in that hand and had to go all the way back to a town to rest to recouperate the broken limb. They cant just add medical kits could it wouild break the setting of the time, dont think there where medical kits on tamriel back then.

Combat is not what makes TES games interesting.

No hit detection is only one of many things that makes the combat terrible. I think the main thing though, is that Skyrim also just doesn't have anything that makes the combat good. Can't think of anything they did particularly well. Putting locational damage in wouldn't magically solve everything - it's in Fallout 3 and that also has terrible combat in spite of it, and it's harder to go wrong with a FPS than a melee game but Bethesda still managed it.
True, but TES games would be much more interesting, enjoyable, and re-playable if combat wasn't so bad.

It pisses me me off that we cant have hit-locations after 5 years of development. It makes no sense at all, that an arrow penetrating one's skull does the same amount of damage as an arrow to the knee. I havnt tried it out myself but i can only assume that when something as big as a freaking arrow is imbedded in your brain youre pretty damn close to dead.

It completly breaks everything called immersion when hitting someone in the head with a 30kg sledgehammer does the same amount of damage as a hit to your toe. Again I can only assume that getting sledgehammer smashed into your head would be worse that getting your toe [censored] up.


Edit: Also really [censored] irritating when playing an assassin; sneaking up on someone in a cave etc and shooting an arrow right into their back. Which sadly triggers the following NPC response: "I guess it must have been the wind"! WHAT THE [censored]?! you have a BLOODY ARROW IMBEDDED IN YOUR BACK AND YOURE GUESSING ITS THE WIND?!?!?! Yes Im sure it was the wind who got an arrow airborne and shot it into your back.

My enemies don't live long enough for me to know what you're talking about, sure enemies don't realize you've hit them in the leg, they don't limp, they don't complain. If they did, the game would be even easier than it is now. You'd hit a guy in the arm with a mace, he'd drop his weapon and slowly bleed to death on a rock? How realistic do you want the game to be? Sure it'd be nice to kill someone with one arrow to the head because it's ridiculous seeing a guy with an arrow in one ear and the other end poking out the other side of his head but he's still charging you... but the game would be just too easy

That's just my opinion though.

If there was any kind of hit detection then they combat system does need a bit of an overhaul.

But it would be totally worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SEuoEJkODE

(My modded game resembles this. With Difficulty for Everyone(4x/4x damage) mod, I have to dodge all the time and I can kill things easily but I run away from bears and sabre cats just like a real person would run away from bears and sabre cats. Dragons would kill me before I can look up but I can one-shot them like that too when I am high level. I need locational damage to balance things better.)

When I first played it, I thought I was doing it wrong because there was no reaction when I hit enemies with a normal strike

That's where armor comes in.

So phenomenally sick and tired of this meaningless phrase being deployed by every poster with a grudge against . (I noticed the OP also used "kills immersion" in the first post of most of his recent threads. Not in the one where he wishes the game were Monster Hunter, though.)


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As to the main point.... maybe it's because I've been playing RPGs (tabletop & digital) for so long, but I honestly have no problem with the whole general "You have a pool of hitpoints, that increases with level. Attacks reduce your HP. Lose all of them and die" system. This "i want the game to be a frantic action Mortal Kombat game where getting hit in the head is an instant kill!1!1!1!1one!" thing..... seems to go against the part where people are already complaining the game is "too action" and no longer an RPG.

(Also.... combat is repetitive/boring/easy? And you don't think it would be just as repetitive & boring & easy, if not even more so, if you could just "I whack him in the head and he goes down" every single time?)

A man covered in animal furs is still going to be crippled by such an attack.
The point was that the way damage works, doing damage and hit detection that way would make things too easy.

Ahem. Arrow in the knee.