I have been playing a dual wielder with a sword in her left hand and when you start a right handed attack then really quickly release right mouse and hold the left mouse down to do a left power attack it will do this really cool feint with the right hand then a thrust attack with the left, and it staggers your foe.

Doing this really got me wondering why Bethesda seems to think a longsword and axe are the same thing. One handed swords are made for point attacks generally. The Roman gladius was a point attack weapon. As a person that has actually won a trophy at a Division I collegiate fencing tournament (just blatant horn tooting) I know whereof I speak.

It would not be that hard to implement actually, if the default attack was a thrust you could even change the line of attack on each successive swing and cycle through about 4 different areas of attack then start over. The power attack would be a swing like it and the default attack is now.

Generally swords aren't good at hacking through armor, that is what the point is for, and then you can use hack on peasants in no armor.

But that requires new animations...Bethesda isn't so keen on making new animations most of the time...

If you want accuracy with weaponry and combat, play this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC_Zi_xUeDw

Given that most swords in Skyrim are curved in shape, stabbing should NOT be their primary attack. With that, its easier to use one animation set for the whole weapon range rather then custom animations.

The only one that is curved enough not to have a viable point attack is the scimitar which is a horseback weapon anyway. As far as I am concerned the weapons should not be curved anyway as that is only for calvary which is non existent in skyrim.

As far as animations are concerned, it would not be that difficult to just put it in for the default one handed swords. In fact, they already have the animation as it is used in the scenario I mentioned above. So they could just use it for all one haded sword default attacks as well. The offhand mace attack is already differnetiated anyway.

Lession 1: Stick 'em with the pointy end.

You are now injecting reality into a video game. Your argument loses all validity. We are talking about a videogame, not real sword fights. It doesnt matter what the swords look like.

I can't believe you actually wrote that. The fact that somebody could be so ignorant is astonishing.

Curved swords. Curved. Swords.

There are stabbing kill animations... which makes sense because you are normally dead after a sword stabs through you.

Here is the one that amazes me.... DAGGERS swing like axes! Daggers are for stabbing and that is the only thing they are good for.... besides slitting throats.

Now the type of sword does matter. Some swords are better for slashing and others better for stabbing. The roman gladius is a shortsword and great for stabbing where a katana is a long razor sharp sword good for cutting someone open.

Well said.

I mean they reportedly had animators study soil and forrest errosion. Why not have them study sword fighting? Isn't that what about 80% of people associate the game with 100%.

I do like the thrust kill cut scene, but really it should be much more common.

And Noxious I agree daggers should have it too. As far katanas though, they can be used rather well for hacking or stabbing, but that would be more difficult to implement consistently. Really a long sword can be used for hacking but they are better at stabbing and it would add some variety to the combat and just that alone would feel more realistic.

As far as two handed swords, they are probably fine the way they are as you can get a lot more leverage and armor penetration as well as impact damage with a two handed weapon.

Dual wielding is unrealistic in and of itself, maybe for sword and shield tactics, but unless your using lightsabres stabbing with two swords at once is a little silly.

Yeah I agree that dual wielding is pretty fantasy based. The Italians did develop a dueling style called Florentine that involved using a stilleto or your cape in the off hand, but it was pretty uncommon otherwise. However, perhaps they could have the simultaneous dual wield attack be the way it is as they already have the animation for that developed anyway. It would just be a matter of the game responding to the players attack pretty easily. That said if one dual wields it is possible to start simultaneous thrust on two different attack lines in order to 'foil' a parry, but it would be low powered attack meant to wound and weaken an opponent.

One more vote for a thrust animation, although in Skyrim that is less true than might be obvious. The beauty of swords is that almost all could cut and thrust. They might be better at one than the other depending on blade geometry, but it was that versatility that made them superior weapons.

Look at the shape of the blade and you can see it's purpose. Weight shifted to the hilt and a pointed end is a thrusting sword. Weight shifted towards the tip is a cutting sword. Even blade is both. Viking era swords were mostly cutting swords and not thrusting swords. The blades were relatively straight with somewhat rounded tips.

As someone pointed out, Skyrim is hardly a realistic fencing simulator, and if it were, BGS wouldn't have included 6-700 years of weapons and armor development which had vastly different fighting styles.

All I want is just one game, one game that doesn't depict pseudo-vikings with horned helmets.

No man! It's gotta look pretty first! Gotta have a lot of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=namf8elkLOY. That's what defines combat!

Combat is all about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROizS7KjjTw&t=2m50s, didn't you know?

For someone who has done swordfighting in real life, I can't believe you don't know something so elementary.

Honestly, I think http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy__xdOfIAQ&t=7m44s is unrealistic and stupid. Real combat is not that slow and defensive, what nonsense.

Look, if the game would be fully about realism, about 80% of the weapons in the game should be spears.

But there's not a massive difference between thrusting and slashing or cutting. Realisticly a sword would go blunt very, very quickly when attacking an armoured target, wether you thrust or not. Besides, against most of the opponents in the game slashing would be a lot more effective, seeing as it creates a much larger wound if done correctly, allowing for substantially larger amounts of lost blood.

Either way, I'm going to have to say that this entire debate is pretty silly. Wether you thrust or slash is entirely up to the shape of your own sword and the type of opponent you're facing anyway. Unless Bethesda adds in different animations for every weapon type versus every single opponent, it's always going to look stupid sometimes.

Swords should slash but daggers should thrust.

Animations for drinking potions instead of instant heal, and enemies using potions? What is this blasphemy?


And 80% of enemies would not be bears

Really 80% of weapons would be some sort of polearm.