First off - saying I'm ranting is not really very respectful communication.

Second - I never wrote that MMO player skills were brainless key bashing - I wrote that they were skill sets divorced from character skill sets.

Now onto the substance parts ... Hmm OK so I found these two pages:

http://elderscrollsonline.info/finesse

http://elderscrollsonline.info/synergy <- hey I recognize that word!

Great info! In fact better than I thought.

Still I maintain that it is not synergy as I meant it or as has been the case with the TES solo games. The player develops skill which then can reward the player with more experience and shorter cool downs.

Well I guess that is the inevitable result of having a point buy experience system. Now I can go back to grumbling about why they have moved away from natural grow skill progression and that experience and level in the solo games are based on character skill. Not as synergistic, but this does sway my opinion some. Thanks.

Not quite the same when you have heat seeking arrows, magic bolts, and are sure to hit an opponent if your are within a 6 foot radius of them. That requires little player skill in my book.

Again, aiming is not the only way you get player skill. Fighting games disprove this. MMOs like GW2 disprove this.

How you use your skills matters. How well you dodge matters. You strategic choices of when to block, interrupt, and use power attacks matters. Resource management matters.

Honestly, I think the combat in this game sound much more skill based than every other Elder Scrolls games. TES games have pretty rudimentary combat really. There are no interrupts. Blocking at the right time does not cause a stun. Power attacks at the right time do not cause knock downs. The strategy is pretty much just to spam your most powerful attacks, heal when need be, and maybe use some debuffs.

I've not played GW2 - and I never claimed that all player skill games had the synergy I was speaking of with the TES solo games. Why always bring in games outside the scope of the topic here (TES solo games and TESO)?

The synergy being that skills used by the player are also skills of the character.

In the solo games have your tried blocking an NPCs power attack? There you will find stun. Yes even in vanilla (unmodded) skyrim you can stagger and round defenses and use sword play tricks. For Oblivion this was all better with mods. I play all the solo game with mods really.

Just bringing up games that I think serve as useful examples. When I see people say things like "you can't have skill with heat seeking arrows" I feel obliged to show that its false.

I said this already but it bears repeating. There is a TEST to see if combat is skill based. Simply put: If two players with equal characters fight, does the more skilled player win a vast majority of the time? If the answer is yes, then yes its skill based.

As things are right now, I think its clear that ESO has skill based combat. The existence of a finesse system prove that to me already. Even if it doesn't have real time aiming, it has skill.

Your argument is a bit different than the OPs though. You seem to be solely focused on synergy between player skills and character skills. I think ESO has this as well since the developers have said skills level up with use. But we'll have to wait and see whether its the same as the SP games.

To me player skill is the skills of playing the game as the character. That is what defines a large part of TES sole games. Immersion.

Yeah there is an MMO game playing skill set, but not the same kind of skill set as what I outline. Not actually having to aim (just facing the right direction is not aiming) is not the kind of synergy I was referring to. I swear I did not know that TESO had a lock down on this word for one of their game mechanics - now it seems that I'm aping a small difference. anyway ... that is the point I'm making in this thread and building upon what the OP presented.

I've other gripes in other threads.

At any rate I come away from the last few exchanges more enlightened and ready to give it all another shot (if invited back).

Blah blah blah,

Pvp will be fun

Blah blah blah

Just try it