HI

Me and probably you heard from a lot of youtubers and videos that combat in ESO feels empty, its like you are not hitting your enemy and it needs work. And I agree.

Even in Quakecon presentation the, Bow fire animation was really bad. Yes I am criticizing but I will write constructive criticism how to make it better and what was wrong with that. I also played skyrim a bit lately just to try to figure out why the skyrim combat feels real and that your are hitting your target and why ESO does not feel that good. I know I cannot compare RPG with MMO but those are just effects and better animations of combat which can be also done in MMO.

melee:

The thing is, the reason why combat in skyrim felt so good and why you felt you are hitting somebody was because of blood ( sparks if you fought dwarven sphere ). When I was fighting human I hit him and the blood effect from him was nearly through the half of the screen ( no blood effect mods ) and I knew my enemy was hit with my sword.

In ESO, the blood effect is really small when you hit your enemy with a melee weapon, and players cant see that effect in combat, because even the red target highlight glow is making it invisible. The Red highlight and red blood are merging together, so you really cant see the blood from your enemy and it seems your hits have no effect. Also the sound effect should be louder and with every attack. Because we have eyes and also ears, and when I hit my enemy, and it makes blood effect and even like smash sound effect to his flesh, you know your hit was successful and it adds some level of realism to it.

Bow animation

When I was first watching QuakeCon video I was amazed, the environment looked amazing, it was even better in first person. But when he started shooting with bow, there was something wrong, something just did not feel right with that bow and arrow animation. So I tried to pause and play video and the thing is: he released mouse button and fired arrow, the arrow instantly disappeared right from the bow, you did not even see it flying to your enemy, only some flash effect of arrow. Than the bow animation was kinda laggy, one moment the bow was strained and other second it was released. and the whole bow was inclined to the right side like the bow was aiming always to the right but he was shooting straight.

So if the arrow would not just disappear but it was actually shot from the bow, (it can disappear near the enemy), the animation must be whole, not in pieces because it feels jerky, and the bow should be pointed straight.

Btw even if you are not aiming and have bow in your hands and if you start to aim, you have to make that animation whole, because it felt like bow just appeared in aiming position. Also there should be more stretching sound effects not just one. because than every shot feels the same.

Also some arrows pointing from your enemy would be awesome if you shot them, it would add that nice feeling to archers and to the enemy so he knows when he is hit by archer ( in PVP).

My aim was just to improve the game before its released and make it the better as possible, the same as all of you want to,so I gave some ideas and how the things could look better. I care about this game so I wrote it here, cuz im not in beta yet. Hope you understand and have also some Ideas!

it is more than likely that combat is not going to change all that much from the quakecon footage.

From the quakecon footage the bow animation will. And the big deal in ESO is combat, thats why the combat has to be as much immersive as possible, so you feel it you enjoy it all day long xD

and you know it will change, how? because you want it to?

and you know it won't change how? because you think it won't?

man I dont want to argue with you Combat is one of the most important things in MMORPGs and if the combat is boring and cheap, it wont draw much people to it. And it is not just my opinion, but the opinion of many other people who watched the gamplay videos.

And the more we give ideas and improvements to the game, the more it will be better when it is released and will draw all kind of audience to it.

i don't but that is the trend of most games, the amount of time it would take to redo all the combat animations seems like it would take too long.

from the quakecon footage, it seems to be a combo of skyrim and tera. at least it s not another WOW clone.

I am not talking about all the combat animation, if you would ahve read the thread you would know it The effects have big impact on gameplay. The only animation is the bow animation and you know it needs a little improvement xD

DDO uses similar animation, just you do not get to see the arrow at all and it is one click instead of being able to hold down the arrow to aim. it might be possible to change it, but they might have done that for a reason, possibly FPS reason

Animations are always being worked on throughout beta.

The combat doesn't need to change. The animations do. For almost all of it.

There's nothing wrong with the combat when you hit something, the animation for receiving and dealing a hit are just unpolished.

Well, the devs have confirmed that the red glow will be toggleable, meaning you can turn it off.

As for realism, well, I've never whacked a giant lizard man with a 2 handed axe before, so I'll leave that up to the imagination.

I agree whole heartedly about the bow animations. It looked a bit clunky and sluggish to use a bow imo.

As for realistic combat, the main thing I'd fix is the death animations. It looked as if they were straight out of World Of Warcraft, as they're a bit choppy and static. The bow animation also *looks* heavy, which it shouldn't because, well, it's a bow. It should look and feel very light. I'd also have a more direct "red screen" approach like Skyrim had, where a little red flash will appear from the direction you were hit. I didn't care for the all encompassing red screen seen in QuakeCon, it was quite distracting and well, I've never liked red pain screens in games. It seems to be a thing now though. Those are really my only gripes with the combat system from what I've seen though.

I think a lot of it, is me confusing combat and animations for some reason

When i first read it, i was thinking of the way bow combat worked. animations do change at least slightly over beta and release that is true. sorry about that

Effects are important really, those blood effects are too small, and not even including highlight glow. attack melee animations are okay. Except bow ofc.

any link to a good combat video? I'd like to check it out! all i'm seeing are poor res youtubers

You can make it extremely real by having your friend stab you everytime you get hit with a sword, club you when you get hit with a blunt weapon, or set you on fire for magic spells.

Healing spells might just be band-aids though

I think the blood effect is perfect and I can totally see it.

With the bow, I think it just needs a longer draw time.

Available in 720p, footage from QuakeCon presented by IGN...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWXjzLEGV9U

Combat is first shown at around 6:30 and kind of goes throughout, as the majority of the rest of the video is a dungeon raid.

I agree with the bow needing a longer draw time, it might be harder to balance with such fast paced combat, but you could always boost the damage. Give the bow some skill to use, but reward when that arrow connects.

One of the biggest things I saw with the combat system and animations is there's no impact when the characters get hit, no staggering, no falling to one knee, no fatalities. Skyrim had impact, enemies would stagger and fall, even in oblivion if you hit a character low on health with a fireball they would get thrown off their feet.

Haha, you got to love the miracle patchers. Every single mmo they are there and every single mmo no miracle patch and the game is released in pretty much the same condition as it was with 6-9 months of beta left.

Enemies will stagger in ESO it is confirmed. Even they will stager to the side you hit them.

you can see it because you are totally focusing only on that blood effect, if you are playing ESO in dungeon, you have to aim, you have to watch your health, you have to know when your enemies are, you have to watch for traps, for your combos, and your brain is just not seeing that small blood effect. In skyrim it is really unreal, but blood is spraying through half of your screen, and even than sometimes you just dont see it because you are focused on something else.