Don't they have a stagger anim like in OB? When you land a power attack?

Combat's the best part about the games, to me. It's varied, it's fun, and it opens up a lot to the imagination. I don't want hyper realistic beyond M&B combat if it's going to detract from the fact I can quickly and easily fire spells out of my hands. Different games require different styles, and I don't suspect Skyrim's combat to get repetitive as long as you're not uncreative.

Yes they do, they don't react to other hits though, especially light ones. There's only sound feedback, which contrasts with their otherwise successful attempt to add weight to combat. It's alright if you're wielding daggers, but a light hit from, shall we say, a giant hammer or huge axe is expected to cause a slight amount of pain.

That might not sound so bad, but it really alters the mechanics of combat. Difficulty is determined by how much HP your enemy has, not by how well you can block and dodge his attacks. You don't really feel like you're hurting your opponent, save for the occasional stagger and until well, he drops dead with a finisher.

The thing is with a stagger though is that it opens up the opportunity to constantly chain blows so that you're opponent can do nothing at all. In a group situation this would be vastly different, but having the ability to completely control a single foe because you have a fast speed on your weapon or and exceptional trigger finger is not rewarding to me. Obviously Skyrim has an air of cinematic flair and I'm fine with, for example, that piece of footage where the wind enhanced sword is swinging at the spider. Every blow shouldn't make it stumble because it would be visually exhausting, rather than just satisfying to watch the blood spill out.

Indeed. Bethesda should have a good look at Mount & Blade's combat system for TES VI. I don't understand this debate of 'stats vs player skils', they can be perfectly combined, of which Mount & Blade is again a shining example.

Directional attacks/parries, collision-based attacks (rather than aiming the crosshair at your enemy and just click click click), and more damaging attacks and "guaranteed" (short) staggers are the way to go, and would instantly make the TES combat a ton more interesting. Pity that it probably won't work on consoles though.



Naturally the stagger should be shorter than the time to land a second blow, this way the enemy does not have the time to land an attack earlier than you, but he does have time to block yours. That gives offensive/defensive rhythm to the combat, where your skill in successfully blocking and/or dodging attacks and knowing when to attack or defend determine the outcome.

Stats make characters respond faster and hit harder, which will make it extremely difficult to face high level opponents at low level, even with a great amount of personal skill.

Those people who don't like the combat system have clearly never played the past games ie: Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion. Just from what I've seen in the game play footage it is allot better in many aspects. The animation for example, it used to be slice back and forth if you have a sword and occasionally... stab with a mace?? Ya it is allot better then it was. I say great job Bethesda.

That depends on the way it is designed. For instance, in the Witcher 2, enemies are very effective at blocking. You need to choose the most effective type of attack to break their defenses and proceed to land a few blows, before they recover their stance. If you don't time this well, it will be you taking a sequence of blows until you can recover and block again. This makes combat very strategic, you need to be constantly dodging, blocking and counter-attacking to be a good swordsman. There is a learning curve involved and it's not as friendly as Skyrim's system in which anyone is able to master in a few seconds. But it's far more rewarding when you finally grow in power. It also looks great.

I have played all three, for hundreds of hours each. But when comparing Skyrim to another game, I also take in account other RPGs released in the HUGE gaps between each TES game. A successful installment in a game series is not only a sequel to itself, but also a reflection of every other similar game in the market and the technology advancements which heavily alter how players perceive gameplay over the years. Saying Skyrim's combat is good because it is superior to Daggerfall, released aeons ago, means pretty much nothing. It's actually mandatory if you're expecting any success in this industry.

It IS good by the way, but could be much better.

people want it better, personaly i don't see how you can make it better. For now i found it good enough to give me awesomness and hapiness!
seriously, some people try to compare it to a third person game like AC, but remember that TES is a (at the base) a FPS. Soif they try to put a system where you are locked on an enemy... no it would be aweful. Don't want to be assist like a vegetable and let the game do everything at my place. Doing things by yourself in all the combat that make TES so free in what you do. Before saying that the combat system is crap try to think about how it could be better and you'll see it's hard tou find a little idea. The system combat have always been like that in all the TES, i don't see why it should REALLY change A LOT. But don't say no to few new thig like in this one the finish move!

PS : Only 3 more days! YIPA!

It is all fine by me, as I am no great admirer of extrremely detailed graphs, moves, etc... Plus I am either an archer or mage, so... it was great in O by me.

You skipped my post it seems. Mount & Blade is a first person game as well, and have none of that 'locking' crap either.

1. Collision based attacks
2. Directional attacks/blocks
3. Locational damage and attack aiming (in third person and for NPC's too, not just for the player in first person)

I think melee combat looks a lot better than it did in Oblivion. The finishing moves sure do add a lot to the feel of melee combat.
It is unfortunate though that enemies don't always reflect the impact of a direct sword hit during combat.

However there's a lot more to this game than just melee combat. Now that they've altered their approach archery, I'm sure I'll be using ranged weapons a lot too.
And then I'm not even talking about magic skills.

Bethesda should just ditch the well realised open fantasy worlds, the huge emphasis on Role Playing however one pleases and everything else that makes their series unique in the industry today, in favour of super solid melee combat with tons of gore and limb damage/severing and instakill swings for the REALISM!

They should also rename it from TES to Call of Honour: Medieval Warfare or Gods of War: Mundas Edition.

I'm kinda tired and drained from reading all the Armchair Game developers claiming that any aspect of a game is achieved by minimal effort...

Wait you're not saying that? Oh, because I figured that was what you all meant, you know, with all that whining that the combat isn't realistic enough for you. Forget the fact that you can be whatever the [censored] you want in the game, the melee is [censored].

*Cancels pre-order*

What more could you ask for from first person melee combat?

Believe me, I love TW2 combat system, but that game is entirely different. You have to admit, for an RPG TW2 was fairly limiting in the options you could take. You could specialize in bombs and traps, yes, but you didn't have much range in terms of many varieties of combat. That's how the game's designed, and again I love it for that, but Geralt is made specifically to be able to tumble and maneuver around a battlefield. Whilst theoretically you could make a character that emphasizes in speed, the fact that it's a first person game makes it impossible to accurately represent the same type of combat.

You have to consider that changing one thing about the game requires, for that consistency, many other parts of the game to be on par as well. "Upping" the combat on the melee side forces range and magic to reevaluate, changing the overall tone of the game. The Elder Scrolls is high fantasy and while The Witcher is as well, that game centers around a set protagonist and what he faces in his journey. TES is options, choice, and far less dark themes than TW dabbles into on a regular basis.

Again, if you reference this kind of combat in terms of a TES game, it just won't work. I played the heck out of TW2, so I'm pretty sure I have a good consensus on this. When enemies stagger in that game, they have the option to block because of the way the combat is set up in that Geralt can only swing so fast, as well as clipping animation frames in order to put up a block. Using this system in mind, Skyrim enemies would either not be able to hit you, or you wouldn't be able to hit them. Things need to flow a lot more in first person games, and personalized skills based on equipment (for NPCs primarily) would quickly take over if you haphazardly did this system.

Am I saying it couldn't work? No, but I would not vouch for total realism. Recently I was looking over the fights for the Game of Thrones TV series, and I notice a few things. The Bronn fight at the Eyrie shows that the first one to land a blow is more than likely the loser. Looking at the Ned vs Jamie or Mountain vs Hound fights, the combat is relatively slow. Don't get me wrong, this is another thing that I love about the TV show, but I wouldn't want to play something as visceral as that because it's not nearly exciting enough for this high fantasy game.

So yeah, I think people are making far too big of a deal out of wanting the melee combat in particular to be extremely complex. In any real situation, you'd need to rest after every single fight regardless of whether or not you've been hit because of fatigue. I don't want that. I like my melee combat fast and flowing, my ranging complex and slow to engage, my magic mystic and powerful, and my stealth to work. Of course these are my feelings, but I feel Skyrim provides.

The problem with that is if the enemy reacted to EVERY blow the game would be incredibly easy. You could just keep hitting away as they go through their looped hit animations. They do feel the weight of each blow (check the demos) and they DO move once hit. (again check the demos) ITS NOT like just hitting a wall (again check the demos) lol.

They move and react to each blow but it can't be so much that it is constantly interrupting their attempts to attack you back, the game just wouldnt be any fun and would be a stun-lock race.

In a real world scenario one hit with a giant hammer would likely crush their entire ribcage inwards. Obviously though you can't just run around and one hit everything. So yes they react to the hits but you have to understand that they cant have giant hit animations for everything otherwise you could lock the enemies in their own animations.

Yes, I agree with pretty much everything you said (and also a fan of the chronicles). I only mentioned the Witcher because it is a modern game with swordsplay, but I agree the same exact fighting system wouldn't work for the reasons you mentioned.

However, I can't help but feel Skyrim's system is overly simplistic, almost old school as far as combat strategy goes. It looks better, but ultimately difficulty is tied to damage output only. And I think it's a deliberate choice, to make it more accessible and casual. Nothing wrong with that, it will probably please more people for being so. But if you were to really design something innovative, you'd need to break away from Oblivion's mold instead of trying to improve on it. I think they played safe when they could have gone much farther, simply because they didn't NEED to take risks. They know all too well they have a great game for all its other features.

and we saw what focusing on melee and forgetting about everything else get you. one of the worst games of that year.

Wow. I just looked up Dark Messiah. That game looked badass. it was like a combination of Skyrim with Dead Island. and were you able to start attacks in different stances?

Well, I can tell you that I would not like if they radically overhauled the combat system merely to make it more realistic as people are putting it. If they did it to make it more skill based, I would understand, but never put in complexity for complexity's sake. That's convolution. My favorite part of TES games will most likely always be the combat, and if it compromises fun because it becomes lumbering or frustrating, I will most likely not buy it. There are different reasons we play different games, and I will not take the same mind to TES as I do to M&B.

Many would disagree, including myself. I love that game, but one can hardly call it realistic.

Actually the game itself is not that great, we're talking about how the combat system was really nice for its time and influenced later games. The plot was very shallow and there were really no memorable characters. Great graphics and environments back then, however.

That also replies to the post above, we're not praising Dark Messiah as a game here. And I'm not sure what you mean by focusing on the combat system. Bethesda obviously focused ALOT on the combat in Skyrim, seeing how it's the only way your charactes can progress. For the record, a game studio has several different departments working on different areas of the game through the entire development stage.

Some of the arguments constantly repeated in this forum make it appear as if a production team works like this: Good news everyone, we'll make a new game! This year we'll make great combat! Next year we'll make pretty graphics! Everyone get to work!" And then suddenly they have one month left to focus on content....Do a little research, please.

I can agree with that and I wasn't comparing it to dagger fall there is really no way you can especial with the advancements in the RPG area. I was mainly comparing it to oblivion and also adding in the character animation in 3rd person. It is allot better as far as that's concerned. And I also agree that it could be better but hey the games they have come out with have been awesome, and as far as Im concerned I will play what ever Bethesda develops. Even if its a stick and a hoop they would find a way to make that awesome. I'm just sayin.

Agree, combat is probably something that can't be fixed although I don't think it's that bad. It's certainly heading in the right direction.

i actually thought it looked good

HA HA !! *thumbs up*

But im not canceling my pre order lol