You see, if some random bandit shoots you in your head or in your heart or in any important part of your body, you should be dead.
If any random NPC/monster uses a fire spell against you, you should be burnt alive = dead.

This just isn't the way RPGs are meant to be played...

You're hurting his immershun Bethesda. How can you sleep at night?

While I think that headshot instakills is a bit too much in an RPG the op kind of has a point in my opinion. More RPG developers should take a look at mount and blade, that game keeps the thrill of combat and actually portrays swords and bows as directly lethal weapons while keeping rpg elements and making skills like ironflesh(which boosts hp) a very good asset. Believe me you want to be able to take a beating when every hit hurts like [censored].

To me increasing hp becomes even more useful in a game like that since it can literally mean the difference between life and death as opposed to another rpg where you increase your hp just to be able to stand and duke it out for 10 minutes longer than your opponent who "only" lasts like 5. I'm not very well traversed in computer rpgs since i've mostly played PnP:s but before elder scrolls I played Baldurs Gate and Icewindale which had highly lethal combat, I wouldn't call those games less of an RPG.

I think a lot of people are a little close minded when it comes to RPG:s, there are quite a lot of different rules and systems out there, none more or less true of a role-playing experience than the other.

This isn't a first person shooter and I'm glad it hasn't turned into one of those (or a hack and slash action game that takes locational damage into account).

I despise the idea of locational damage in TES.

No way! For that they would need a real project manager and programmer with skills. Thats not so easy ...
Skyrim is not perfect. Its really not easy to make everything realistic. Look at my signature, then you will see Skyrim got some bigger problems...

No.

You can kill half of world using a dagger. You MUST kill a human or a "small/medium headed" creature with an arrow on it's forehead.

It's really amazing and satisfying to do a killing blow. Tell me: How easy is to kill someone distantly with headshots? The bow is already a awful weapon for short distance. You CAN'T use it betwen 0 and 10 meters distance.

Killing with one arrow would be great.

1) get a better bow
2) get better arrows
3) poison arrow
4) sneak
5) ???

profit

The problem with your post is that Bethesda games almost always release with many bugs, which could never be considered intentional. They are perfectly capable of overlooking things.

Although far from perfect,its much much better than Oblivion! Its nice to be able to kill a bandit with one shot,something I dont think I ever managed in Oblivion.

Your in a mythical world with cat people, lizard people, orc and elves. You go around killing dragons, spriggans, the undead, werewolfs and vampires. You can shoot fireballs from your hand and raise undead and ghosts. You know the speech of the dragons and can breath their fire...and you complain that its not realistic?

@w1tcher what you don't realise is that its impossible to have a game without a bug in it. And with the size of the Elder Scrolls games, there could be a whole load more. To be honest, im suprised there werent more bugs.

Arrow headshots can't be insta-kills without devaluing melee combat. There would be absolutely no point in sword combat whatsoever if the easy option was to simply pick people off with headshots, which is already incredibly easy to do.

It wouldn't if the game was designed with that in mind.

Simple solution , turn the difficulty down and people WILL die with 1 lethal shot

Same in OB. My horse had four arrows sticking out of it the other day. Didn't slow down at all.

Personally, I think that The Elder Scrolls needs a new combat system that sits somewhere between Oblivion's/Skyrim's and Morrowind's, but when it comes to the current system, realistic damage would be hugely unbalanced and would trivialize combat.

Nah... arrow headshots would be lame. If you really wanted to go for "realism", an arrow to the chest is most likely going to kill you. One stab with a sword is going to kill you. One smack in the face from a mace or an axe would kill you, etc, etc. Arrow to the head instant kill would make bows massively OP, especially at close range with that shout that slows down time and the perk that slows down time when zoomed.

Didn't ya know, those who have been surviving your arrow headshots are distant relatives of Achilles.

Just give their heels a few swipes and they will drop down dead before you know it.

That would only be fair if you add a heel-shot instant kill.

I would have much rather have seen the wounding system FO has in here.

Feels so much more immersive with it and it was a huge disappointment to see no matter what i hit someone
with they just keep walking forward like nothing happened.

Shoot him in the hand, make him drop the weapon, shoot his legs he cant run, shoot his arm he cant power swing, shoot his chest he falls, shoot his head hes paralyzed.

Nah JK, just put a blindfold on and keep pressing mouse 1, he'll die eventually.

Dont know about you but thats extremely outdated in 2012.

See you're wrong. There's plenty of bandit's I've one hit even at my level of 8 and like a measly 23 two handed skill. So it's realistic to one hit kill someone with a giant axe, but for some reason people have this belief that it's not OK to do that with a bow and arrow? What the hell is wrong with people?

THis issue of arrow headshots being overpowered is easily rectified. First off, I'm not saying that every shot in the head should indeed be fatal. What i'm asking for is a system where it can at least be possible. Yes the game engine would need to take into account armor and health for each limb. So you have armor and limb health versus your bow skill and arrow type. Should a flimsy noob type arrow be able to one shot an Orc through the head? Maybe. Is it wearing a helmet? If it were, is he facing you or away from you? Is his face exposed? Will the arrow happen to pierce the armor? If so will it be fatal? These are all answers worked out with the magical language of math. All the programmers have to do is create a system that utilizes it. We're almost into 2012 here, these types of things are possible.

In a perfect world, I can also imagine a ranged combat tree that allows perks that increase your deadliness with an arrow. Even something like a small % chance to one shot kill high value targets like dragons with one head shot, for example imagining that your character is skilled enough and has a bow and arrow good enough that when combined, your attack can possibly launch the arrow through the eye of the dragon or something killing it outright. You can't tell me that if that were to happen in a game that it wouldn't be one of the most memorable moments in any game you've ever played.

I'm kinda glad there's no locational damage, or wounding or any of that. I don't know about you guys, but I feel kinda boss when my character is marching toward a bandit with an arrow through his neck. c:

Everything is simplified and that makes for more fun, and less hassle. If you're asking for things to die when they have an arrow lodged into their face, it's only fair that the same can happen to you (which would svck for me because I get shot in the face, A LOT).

And if it's realism you want, doesn't that mean that bandits swinging at you should be a one/two shot kill? Getting set on fire by a Redguard should be a near instakill? Mages electrifying you would pretty much char you if you're wearing heavy/metal armor? All of that would svck, and would take me out of the realm of an epic, fantastical RPG, and make me feel like I'm just another peasant trying to survive, which doesn't make sense because I'm Dragonborn, damn it.

That is the question. Do you want an arcade kind of game or a simulation kind of game? What kind of player is the developer trying to please the most? It's true that some people are just looking for a simple and fun game, like Doom or any pinball game. However, I'd argue that most people that play this particular game are looking for immersion, where suspension of disbelief is important. The better a game simulates the behavior of the world it's trying to create, the more immersive the experience is. If I put an arrow through someone's brain and he continues to move forward, I'm pulled from the simulation into the arcade aspect of the game which breaks the immersion.

Now, more realism doesn't necessarily mean more hassle, if it's done right. I agree with you when you say that the same should happen to you but of course, that wouldn't be fun, I get arrows to the head all the time. However, I think this only makes another arcade aspect of this game more obvious: it should be harder to hit a moving target, specially in the head. Plus, as JerTob said, the actual algorithm should be more complex and taking other things into account. Maybe blocking or other kinds of magic would become more important to protect yourself from arrows or other stuff.

The point is, if the game is designed with that in mind, it shouldn't be any easier or harder, just more immersive. Of course, this requires more work from the developer than a pinball game...

But you didn't one-shot due to a "oh, you hit the Super Special Spot?! He dies!", which would work on everything from a lv1 farmer to a lv80 warmaster.

You one-shot the guy because your strike did more HP than he had. Which is a mechanic that's independant of location, or attack method. (If 50hp will kill him, it doesn't matter how you do those 50hp. It's not because "I hit him with my giant axe!")