There is only one word to explain melee combat in this game and that's 'BAD'. Archery is so much more effective and specially if you are stealth based character and have used archery with stealth, you will never go back melee weapons doesn't matter if daggers do 15 times dmg with sneak attack.

Melee combat animation is so bad, most of the times I hit my target but target does not even budge which makes me think twice that whether I missed it or hit it. Plus, we need target locking mechanics here, specially power attacks svck without target locking.

Also why is there no dodge or strafe mechanics here to evade incoming attacks, specially in melee combat. This is essential in melee combat.

With dual wielding, there should be a way to block incoming attacks or at least a portion of it. Parry is one of the main skills taught with dual wielding but the game does not allow it.

Finishing move animations are good but completely irrational. because the actual melee combat consists of basically lifeless and emotionless hacking without any graceful movement, so by the time I actually get a finishing move cutscene, I am already so disappointed with the melee combat that I just finished that I am not even remotely interested in watching the cutscene.

Melee combat needs to improved by a LOT. Its really disappointing. Does anyone else feels this way? If you do then please post, if you have any ideas how it can be improved post them as well, we might be able to get bethesda to do a patch to overhaul melee combat.

Thanks.


EDIT: Please dont get me wrong , i love Elder Scroll games. Overall Skyrim is a great game but melee combat svcks. This game deserves way better melee combat. The current state of melee combat makes me feel like that I am playing at least 5 years old game.

My only concern so far is that, after playing Dead Island, melee combat in Skyrim feels so soft and tame. I'm still enjoying Skyrim, but I think it would have been great if Skyrim took a few lessons from games like Dead Island or Zeno Clash - these games definitely know how to make first person melee combat satisfying!

(it's just too bad that DI is full of bugs, on par with Bethesda's games )

In the 2 games I mentioned, every swing, every hit and impact just feels so strong and satisfying. I am getting tons of visual and audio feedback. Bashing a mace into a zombie's head then seeing it blown to smithereens just never got old - I've played close to a hundred hours of Dead Island and the melee combat never felt old.

By comparison, everything in Skyrim feels so light like a feather...

But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy Skyrim. It's just that after playing Dead Island for so long, Skyrim's melee combat felt like a joke to me, haha.

so far I dont mind it, combat feels as blunt and un elegant as RL melee combat is.

I'm playing a melee character, and it's a lot of fun, but I play in third person view. I can't imagine playing in FPV as melee, it does really lack some oomph.

The 2 games I mentioned (Zeno Clash, Dead Island) managed to give players one helluva "oomph" in first person, implying that it's definitely possible to portray a satisfying first person melee combat experience.

If you haven't seen these games, Youtube some gameplay videos and you'll see what I mean.

Or try Mount & Blade for some of the best close combat around.

I agree on Dead Island though, it was perfectly alright, although a bit heavy on the kicking

I thought Mount & Blade isn't first person though...