Now before any assumptions are made, for the record I really do enjoy the Elder Scrolls and its universe, but I find fighting in the game alittle repetative and boring, and here are some reasons why

first off, most of the time it feels like i hack at a body of health while occasionally stopping the action to heal myself. while there are enemies that vary in uses of combat, they dont seem to spice up the way they fight. what i mean is that they dont have any perks of there own (at least higher leveled enemies) and they all seem to fight the same way, regardless of the weapons/magic they use.

Secondly, magic in Skyrim is pretty dull, especially Destruction.While I do believe it does not need any scaling, it does need more reliability and variety. If you were to use Destruction, most of the time you would fire spells because there is almost no point of using shock and frost spells. they do damage to stamina/magic, but does that really matter since you cant see how much damage you are dealing and they can stil cast spells and use power attacks anyway? Also, a sum of spells are just the higher leveled version of previous spells, therefore making those spells useless. How about add a leveling system to spells so they increase in power, and not just make the same spells only differing by those spells being able to work on higher levels (which you cant tell so you have to guess that)

Next, there needs to be variety in weaponry. I dont mean special weapons, but base weapons (such as the sword, axe, mace, and dagger for one handed melee). Its boring that there are only weapons that differ by only damage and speed. There needs to be more to spice up melee, and longer ranged melee weapons and such. Not only melee weapons should have more, but also ranged.

Lastly, the game neds more challenge, but the difficulty lacks that (similar to the first mentioned paragraph). High difficulties only do the stupid 'take more damage, deal more damage' deal. Maybe higher difficulties should provide some special features that make the game more dificult but actually playable?

Even though i mentioned theses things, I still love and adore the world of Skyrim, but I wish they would spice up the combat in the game (I apologize for any grammar mistakes i have made).

There is much point in using shock spells. They hit instantly and chain lightning in particular is very good at clearing groups of enemies.

Actually,
-Most enemies, from low level bandits, all the way to bandit chiefs, do have perks, mage enemies also have perks too, and you can see them when looking in the CK.
-Meele weapons differ in terms of stagger, reach, speed, and noise, and with perks each melee weapon type has its own special effect.

One handed weapons have base reach, two handed weapons reach 30% farther, and daggers reach 30% shorter.


But yeah, the combat is boring, mainly because enemies dont ever do anything besides attack you.

mods mods mods

Yes, ES combat is very bare bones.

And yes, the way they do difficulty is stupid.

It's true that just about every other successful ARPG in the past two years has had better combat than Skyrim. Dark Souls, Amalur, Dragon's Dogma, etc.

While those are all 3rd person games, I think emulating 1st person games with excellent combat like Chivalry could do TES VI some good.

You don't think turning bosses into damage sponges makes for interesting combat? /sarcasm Yea, combat is lacking in Skyrim - even mages are one-trick ponies.

I'm on the combat is lacking camp for the same reasons that...enemies basically flail at you and don't work together intentionally. I would be more engrossed if over the course of a furball, I incapacitated I.E not killed but disabled one or two foes have several others limping and STAYING limping, maybe a support mage among them is trying to heal buff a few. others are fleeing and regrouping for a proper ambush etc etc...

Combat has never been Elder Scrolls strong point, it never has.
No enemies do not work together, they charge you blindly.

Duel Combat Realism - http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/2700

This mod largely fixes Skyrim's combat problems by making enemies do something other then just attack you.

Its kinda funny it runs almost purely off of the base game''s combat engine, with little extra scripting required.

Maybe I'll go for it, but all in all I'm not sure, I used Duke Patricks Combat mod, and while the changes were sweeping and very apparent....the...fell didn't change, and actually got a little aggravating even with tweaking the Values that he provided. Enemies still swarmed you, and now they slapped you around, rarely do they get the same treatment in return IN MY experience anyway and still were the herp derp enemies.

and it really hasn't changed since....ever been that way in all the games.

Still much better than Oblivions.

I'm new to this type of game (most of my background is with first-person shooters) so I find the animated combat disconcerting. You swing your weapon and it passes your opponent, completing a full swing, even if your strike is a hit. I'd like it better if the animation for a hit (not a crit, just a regular hit) would somehow show contact. For example, the blow lands on your opponent's armor or limbs and stops. They already have this when you get blocked by a shield. You'd only see your weapon complete a full swing if you've missed.

Not with Oblivion with 'Deadly Reflex' installed though.

In my opinion Skyrim's combat is bad for 3 reasons: 1) actors don't react when getting hit so the combat looks fake, 2 ) there is very little player skilled involved (no need to manage your stamina, very few tactics to use...) so combat becomes boring pretty quicly and 3) the AI is too easy to abuse so there is no challenge.

As others have mentioned there are mods that fix those aspects to some extent but still, it's a pity that Bethesda doesn't put more time and effort in making combat fun.