i wonder if it's one day possible to play a hybrid game between skyrim(the elder scrolls) and dark souls?

like the exploration and lore of the elder scrolls, while having the melee combat and multiplayer systems similar to that in dark souls.

coz comparing the melee combat system of skyrim versus dark souls, dark souls definitely win big time..

as for ranged and mounted combat, i think that best reference for this would be mount&blade (looking forward to m&b2).

so i'm interested in what bethesda planned for the future of the TES series? do they have plans in upgrading their combat systems?

Try Dragon's Dogma, problem solved.

I doubt it. To me the combat in the dark souls series seems kinda rigid I hope bethesda makes there sword combat more flexible and fluid but theres also the fact that there games allow you to customize a class with what ever skills you chose so they create there games that allow almost any custome class to play through the game this is probably why there games aren't as hard to beat as others.

The two game series are incredibly different in how they are designed and how they function. TES should remain TES, and not some hybrid of other games.

Agreed. That's probably as close as you're going to get.

Oh god no multiplayer, especially not Dark Souls style since there are always huge problems with hackers causing other people to get banned because of it's horrible system. Invasions themselves being an annoying mechanic.

Definitely against multiplayer in TES, or a style of gameplay that forces people to have to use third person.


Don't get me wrong, I think TES can learn a lot about how to make creative/unique bosses that aren't just upgraded regular enemies, or giving enemy types/bosses unique movements, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses.


I just don't think Dark Souls fully provides this. One thing I'd like TES to nail first is making combat more precise and connective. Where movements and actions have weight behind them. Dark Souls seems just as floaty as TES at times, at least from what I've seen of it.

Honestly dark souls does it worse by making everything into this gigantic death machine because FANTASY. Dark Souls is one of the best examples of games that ignore logic or reason as to how these giant armored behemoths became to be solely because FANTASY! While it is creative it's not good when creating a world trying to seem realistic.

Honestly, less games should take inspiration from Dark Souls because of how flawed it's logic and world are.

More games need consistency even if it sacrifices some amount of tactics instead of nonsensical designs like Dark Souls does where tactics around each boss is essentially around the nonsensical design.

I cant speak on behalf of darksouls and its like because of little experiance with it but I'll say dragons dogma has great boss battles and with that climbing feature its fantastic!! But would an elder scroll benifit from it?....I doubt..but I'm definitly curious to see something like that in an elder scrolls game maybe in one of those game jam thingys?

That's kind of the problem. I'd rather not be forced out of first person because for some games I hate third person. Another problem of these "great" boss battles is the difficult is horrible because they're essentially wars of attrition most of the time and that's not good design imo.

Like you can say they're all about tactics or whatever but when the easiest mode requires you to do the same thing over and over again because the boss has like five health bars for no reason it becomes less good and more bad from how tedious and annoying it gets.

Yeah... Boss battles, IMO, generally svck. They rely on working around repeating mechanics and effects and memory, rather than strategy and reaction. Compare this with paying against People, where you have to try and out think your opponent and react more to their decisions than a timed 'high raid damage phase'.


That's not to say TES has handled 'bosses' well. It really hasn't. But its superior in Tue fact that you can approach an engagement however you want. You dont have to follow a particular movement pattern, reflect certain spells, hide behind a pillar when the boss does X.


Despite its problems, TES requires more strategy than most other games, which seem to think Simon was a strategy game. Memory and repetition can still be fun and challenging, but that doesn't make it strategy.

I'm not against having certain time effects where one might have to hide behind a pillar, use the environment for some purpose, or even where there might be some degree of repetition with certain moves. I personally would like a mix of dynamic and pattern-oriented movements, depending on the enemy or boss. I definitely don't like the way it's done in Dark Souls, though. Just giving enemies in TES different ways of moving, physics, strengths, weaknesses, ways of interacting with the environment, special abilities, etc. would do wonders.


Like, some degree of scripted pattern isn't all bad, I don't think. But you're right that boss battles that hinge on this as its primary dynamic aren't becoming of TES.


Special abilities could be things like diving and attacking underground, temporarily becoming encorporeal and attacking from that state, having invulnerable armor, rapid movement speed, unique interactions with water, ability to turn enemies to stone when they look at its eyes, etc.

Oh, there's definately room for both. But thats the issue. Most games (or, rather, all that I've played) go one way or another. This can be simply because it's easier, or because they expect too little of their players, or Kay be they just don't think about it.


There's room for a Steam Centurian to act more Dark Souls, while a bandit acts more Halo. That said, if I had to pick one or the other, I'd rather more individualistic behaviour with no boss battles.

Fortunately, I see no reason why we would have to pick between one or the other. But yeah, I mostly agree. Bandits should totally function just like NPCs, with maybe bandit faction leaders having some degree of variation. Most creatures should also be more on the dynamic side. Bosses should just have variation between the two. I think in the case of maybe 5 or 6 dragons making a cameo as hidden boss battles in TES VI, I'd enjoy seeing some scripted stuff, like maybe a fire dragon creating enviromental fire hazards in the boss room, or maybe outright destroying part of it with some attacks.


And yeah, I'd love to see steam centurions being more rare, boss-like encounters.


I'm just a big fan of large amounts of variation in terms of playstyles, character options, dungeons, creatures, bosses, etc. I just think there needs to be a meaningful difference in how hard some enemies are for certain playstyles compared to others. I think heavy armor and light armor feeling drastically different could help in this regard as well.

Boss battles are probably one of my favorite parts of a game, but that's entirely dependent on what the game is, and that's another conversation entirely.

Basically, they don't apply to TES well for two reasons, the biggest being that most boss like enemies utilize the same animations depending on what creature they are, or that humanoids (aside from small pool of scripted mage fights) all have the same access to the tools and tricks that we the player have. Liches, Werewolves, the end-game vampires, and the newest additions of dragons are the only ones that I'd really say stand out on their own, because they're explicitly powerful entities with abilities we simply do not have. In order for boss fights to sorta work, they need to at least be unique and test out different gameplay elements and test our ability to overcome them, and uniquely pressure certain builds depending on what you're going for. The problem with that is, its totally a one-shot that would only crop up during a MQ or a few important side-quests, and that's it. Not necessarily worth it, but hey, I'd be down for that.

Worth noting, I would be ecstatic if we ever got a dual like the Olgeird vs. Geralt fight from the Witcher 3. That was actually a fun battle, and is probably one of the few ways to actually make fighting a single humanoid target fun.

Dark Souls never appealed to me. I don't enjoy dying over and over again.

Although being massive fan of both franchises, I can say that Dark Souls's combat system wouldn't seem fit to TES. I would like TES' combat be less concentrated on just clicking enemies to death (becase in the end battles result in this and a bit more tactical approach would be nice), but such things as stamina management, HP regain and so on are all linked to potions in stock.

But there are some things that TES can safely get from DS.

• An ability to two-hand a weapon regardless of its class and one-hand a heavy weapon if you have enough strength for. Probably not going to happen as it demands the reappearance of attributes and I see the player base be frustrated by this. The goal is simple - maximize damage output while sacrificing defense and vice-versa.


• An ability to dodge. Can't see any harm.


• An ability to parry with the critical hit similar to backstab. Can't see any harm.


• Much bigger variety in weapon choice. Can't see any harm in having different types of weapons, including pole weapon class. Even Ubisoft utilized pole weapon in the latest Far Cry, why can't Beth do it?


• Weapon utilization. Katanas are faster than straight swords and so on.


• Different armor should be more effective against blunt, thrust or slash weapons. Dude in heavy armor should be more prone to thrust attacks and light-armored enemies should be more prone to slasing swords, e.g.


• More distinctive bosses. For now TES bosses usually are just stronger versions of other enemies. Of course you can have bandit leaders as bosses, no problem. But why can't you have more unique and rare enemies? Like if you're goung into underwater cave filled with Dreugh (shoutout to Morrowind fans), the boss shouldn't be just another Dreugh. It can be a Dreugh king which is different visually and has unique attacks and properties. Dwemer Centurion is another good example of this concept. Or remeber Bloodmoon expansion - Hircine wasn't just another lycan, he was very different and it added a lot to the overall experience.

There are also areas in which TES shouldn't gain from DS.

• Multiplayer including coop and invasion system. I'm a huge fan of PvP in DS although I'm not that good in it - I just like to test my battle skills against other players. But invasions have no place in TES which in general is much more personal experience. Coop goes there too - in DS it's a way for everybody to have fun, but TES doesn't require this anyway.


• Forced 3rd person view. I love 1st person in TES, I love 3rd person in DS, these modes have different purpose and it should remain this way.


• Overall punishing combat system. I can understand why people say that DS is about dying all over again (I've platinumed all DS games and Bloodborne myself and I don't consider DS games hard after you understand the game mechanics) and I understand that memorizing the patterns because of the chance to be killed after every mistake isn't what every gamer in the world can want. TES should remain more forgiving, it's a much more mass product anyway (sales of Skyrim are bigger than the sales of the whole Soulsborne franchise, lol - you can't deny the fact that the target audience is much wider).

Finally a few words to one specific user here.

That is very interesting way to say "I know nothing about Dark Souls except publishers and media consider it very hard". The game has a lot of reasoning behind every boss battle but you can't understand it if you don't play it and you obviously didn't play and didn't do any lore research, so I can see the roots of your ignorance.

Uh, no. No duel wielding weapons that would usually require two hands because that's just incredibly stupid and one of the reasons why Dark Souls doesn't care about a believable world. No matter how strong you are you will not be able to duel wield two giant hammers or two claymores because it makes absolutely no sense and is incredibly stupid.

I agree that the main culprit is the overuse of animations and lack of unique movements, abilities, attacks, or defenses.


Where I disagree is that these things would be tied to the main quest or fringe quests. I feel most dungeons could be just as they are now, with a few exceptional dungeons being maybe a bit longer, have more deep puzzles and traps, have harder enemy types, and then have unique bosses at the end.


One of the solutions to making more unique boss encounters could be to cut down on dungeon quantity as a whole, which I'd entertain might be worth it. I was never one to explore every dungeon in the game anyway, so having maybe 40 - 60 major dungeons wouldn't bother me, as opposed to like 150 dungeons. Of course, outside of dungeons, we could have places like forts, caves, temples, mines, ships, and all of these places could function more like traditional TES dungeon experiences. Maybe even a few of the smaller dungeons would be like prior TES dungeons, but I'd like a bit more emphasis on quality, at least amongst the harder dungeons. Some should be quick experiences that one can get in and out of, but others rightfully should take hours. There should be something there for players who like delving into dungeons for hours, and those who like quick romps, and something for those who like unique, freaky bosses, and those who prefer more like the traditional style for TES.


I wouldn't expect a boss from every dungeon but just maybe one unique boss out of every 5 or 10 dungeons I go to would be nice. Then they could just supplement the unique bosses by creating other boss encounters that are more like edited versions of regular creatures, like a giant mudcrab, karstaag, etc.


Hell, if sailing were in TES VI, they could even do a boss encounter in the form of a ghost ship which could be super hard to deal with.

The whole point of fantasy is creativity and the fact that it doesn't have to be realistic.

Poorly made fantasy, maybe. Good fantasy follows consistent rules and allows for logical conclusions. It's realistic in that you are able to learn through experience and can expect similar situations to react in the same way. Fantasy doesn't mean doing whatever you as a writer wants, whenever you want, and Realism doesn't mean adhering to strict real-world rules. It's about consistency, logical flow and maintaining the suspension of disbelief.


That's not to say Dark Souls is the worst. It most certainly isn't. The afflictions and abilities of the Undead, the nature of the bosses, and the general rules of the world are explained enough to get away with most of its elements without them becomming jarring. Which is more than can be said for Harry Potter..

I can shoot fireballs from my hand in Skyrim. That also makes no sense.


Different games have different versions of fantasy, as well as different game mechanics that make sense in context of the fantasy world they are set in.


There is never a "right" way to create a fantasy, because they are only limited by a person's imagination.

No one said anything about dual wielding. Of course if you're the warrior with a greatsword, it would make sense that you use two hands for it (although I find pretty funny the fact of one-handing a greatsword while being on horse's back in Skyrim) and don't have two swords that are bigger than yourself. Giant weapons are the common trope for Japanese games and media and it's not very polite to brand the entire culture as stupid - like you do.

But why can't I two-hand my regular katana or longsword if I want to?

Good fanatsy follows the route of establishing a set of rules which are consistent in the universe. Two-handing or one-handing a weapon are not relevant here, as TES anyway goes more realistic way of portraiting such things than DS.

On the other hand I wouldn't mind equip burden and armor types being more similar to DS, as well as the upgrade system. +10 Longsword which is made by using a very rare recource looks much more believeable to me than the "Legendary longsword" with the infinite AR.

I generally agree, but the issue starts to bump into control limitations. Being able to switch between grips and stances is something that would be great, But needs to be fluid and not break the flow of combat. That's easier said than done.




I would like something similar in concept, but not Dark Souls execution. Make burden weight-based and call it a day, it solves all the problems.