I considered the combat in Oblivion to be one of the worst aspects of the game and in dire need of improvement. Yet Bethesda either thought differently or had no idea how to improve it. Skyrim basically has the same combat as Oblivion with very little additions. My problem with the melee combat is that it does not really require any skill at all. Especially once you got better armor it mostly seems to resemble chopping wood... Chopping with one hand and healing when needed with the other... No skill, no reflexes, no tactic required. The first Gothic already did it a lot better over 10 years ago! The combat in Gothic requires skill and different attack and defense pattern for different enemies. The difference in Gothic between being dead in 3 hits and killing the enemy without loosing any HP, is a matter of 80% skill and 20% luck to keep things interesting. Since they finally managed with Skyrim to get their NPC behavior patterns (Radiant AI) to the level Gothic 2 already reached 10 years ago, I think it's time for them to bring the Combat in the TES series at the very least to the same level.