The lack of vital body part bonuses in damage caused to the target for archery. I noticed that in Oblivion headshots were almost always an instant kill. In Skyrim, it doesn't matter if you hit them in the head or the torso, the damage amount is still the same.

You remember wrong, Oblivion didn't have locational damage....at all...only Mods UV/DR did that.

Well, I suppose I was wrong, then. Still, if Fallout had this, there's no reason why Skyrim shouldn't have this type of system. It's harder to get headshots and you don't have to arch your shots anymore. This being said, you do have to lead your shots with moving targets.

Hi there Pipboy_3000!


It's one of those things many, me included, wish to see implemented in TES VI. Even if at the cost of sacrificing RPG orthodoxy. And since we'll likely be going down that path, let's take a moment to re-evaluate this notion the damage you deal should increase exponentially as you level up. It really shouldn’t, at least not to the extent and at the rate that it currently does. But that's a discussion that will get ripe only when TES VI looms.

I wanted locational damage too, its one of the first things noticed in the first Skyrim Gameplay Vid.

"I see this guy get swiped in the neck and he's still standing??"

It will likely never happen because they are clearly skewing the ES series more and more towards casual audiences and people who are more casual gamers aren't going to be as into trying to make that perfect headshot.

The only hitboxes in oblivion were the entire body, no locational damage. Unless your thinking of Fallout, then that does have locational damage. Either way, I get what you're trying to say, and I must agree with you on this, locational damage might be interesting. hit an enemies leg to make them walk slower, their arm so they do less damage, hit their weapon to disarm them

Locational damage would of been so awesome, shoot a guy in the knee and he goes down, crawling, yelling "Aaarrgh, my knee!"

And when he gets shot in the head:

"Aaaaarghhh my Grey Matter!"

Unless it happens to you and you have to limp around not being able to run whilst being surrounded by bandits.

Beth, make it happen, ASAP

I love sneaky arrow to the head although i have not done a arrow shot to the knee yet..it seems so common (just ask the guards anywhere in skyrim) that you would think i would have gotten one by now...sheesh..

Locational damage would make combat 10x better. I probably wouldn't complain about combat if they had locational damage. Enemies could finally have weak spots and you could severe peoples limbs and such. Melee would have to be changed to accommodate this.

don't be so pesimistic! The next elder scrolls will come out during the next generation of consoles. And who knows what kind of technology they will mess around with? It does seem like they're going down a path for more casual gamers. But even if we do still lose birth signs and classes still, they could possibly add a whole new layer of physical realism that will be astonishing. And casual/hardcoe gamers alike will find appreciation in that. Bethesda knows that.

I'm so sick of people ignorantly blaming everything they don't like about the game on "casual gamers."

As far as I'm concerned locational damage belongs in first-person shooters, not in roleplaying games.

Yeah, I bet "casual gamers" could learn how to shoot different body parts, and if not they could turn the difficulty down at any given time.

At which point he submits an application to the local Jarl for a position as a guard.

Indeed... probably the first thing I thought when playing 'Skyrim' was not: " Damm, I wish this was more like 'Resident Evil 4' ". I think Bethesda actually struck the right balance in avoiding locational damage entirely... 'real-time' would have been too FPS 'twitchy', and a 'Fallout' V.A.T.S. type arrangement would have, oddly enough, been too old-school turn-by-turn RPG.

As things stand, I can happily accept the occasional 'instant-sneak-critical death-blow' to the right buttock (or whatever) in return for resources having been diverted to a more expansive gameworld.

Its not pesimism. Whlle you're certainly right that we cannot know what nextgen consoles will be, the primacy of visual experience is clear even in this generation. The real breakthrough in modern gaming would be the effective usage of physics and the more complex AI. Since mainstream video games are made from huge budgets, of course they're oriented towards the casual gamers and dumbed down technical solutions. This also means the domination of shiny visuals over valuable mechanics.

Lack of locational damage are a little bit surprising, because they had in Fallout 3, and as we know, Bethesda likes to reuse models / textures / features / etc. And no, you can't argue that Skyrim has a different engine the F3, because Creation Engine clearly far away from being a new one, its just a reused, modified Gamebryo. Its not even for debate. Even the physics engine is the same (Havok, which is in my opinion is a perfect choice). And as I truly loved the locational damage feature in F3, I agree that combat would be 10× better with it in Skyrim, not mentioning the new tactical aspects and additional gameplay depth that it brings.

I feel like Bethesda could have expanded on it as well by having bandages that would be put on a damage body part(and removed when armor is equipped), that would stay on for a few hours and make that specific body part more vulnerable to damage. That would give a real incentive not to be hit often!

With any luck, they'll be made of 'Burlap' and be included in the next premium edition of the game... perhaps in addition to some anti-septic ointment.

Nice I can't wait for th-wait a minute. My sarcasm radar is picking up something...
edit: honestly though, I could probably make that thing I mentioned earlier happen myself if specific body part damage was implemented and I could make/find a few good clothing models. It would likely just involve force equipping clothing invisible to the player character, on him when he had no clothing covering that part of the body up, and the invisible weightless bandages could be stored in the player's inventory from the beginning of the game.

LoL tooooo funny!

I'm not blaming casual gamers, just pointing out they make up a large part of the consumer base. I like the system how it is without locational damage, but I could easily adapt if they added it.

@MMskate: I don't expect any huge gigantic leap in what we experience in games moving to the next generation. Fifteen years ago on inferior hardware, many games suffered from horrible AI and poor level design. In 2012, we still have games coming out with horrible AI and poor level design. Seems like the only thing that changes is that the texture resolutions keep getting higher, and the graphics get somewhat better. We've made great advances in how we control characters; things like the Wii, Kinect, and Move give us interesting distractions from the normal way we play games, it hasn't corrected some of the fundamental flaws that have plagued games for decades.

Each console generation has been progressively less of an improvement each time, especially since the PS1/N64 generation when 3D became commonplace. Hell, this generation we got a PS3 system that is so absurdly frustrating to program for that Bethesda can't even keep their patches on pace with the other platforms.

Point is, don't expect the next consoles coming out to be some giant leap that reinvents gaming. It'll be more of the same old crap except there will be more polygons and better textures.