Sorry dude, but if you think any mmo has better combat than skyrim, you might have a very bad taste for it.
Hotbar based combat would never work in a TES game, neither skill-tree would do.
Hahahah. Are you kidding??
TES combat has always been awful...yes it's getting better with each release but Skyrim combat is still clunky and "decent" at the best of times.
You want a MMO with better combat? Go try Tera...action based combat way more "meaty", fluid and better, overall, than Skyrim.
Even GW2 has better combat imo...it may be hotkey based but still feels much better.
It's entirely possible for them to make a TES MMO with better combat than the original series...
And the PR response was entirely predictable. You think that just because the reception was so negative that they would go "We are sorry for this...We are so scared from this turning into a giant flop". Of course not, they need to keep their image...That doesn't mean anything. We don't know their reaction to all the hate coming since the leak/announcement...they may be scared and not so confident with the game anymore or they don't give a crap and they're completely positive on their sucess.
I was excited for this game at start...then I came to my senses "Oh it's a MMORPG...another generic one and it's not remotely similar to TES when there's no excuse for that" and the leaks didn't help at all...but now I'm kinda interested again since I've been looking for another MMO and GW2 was on top of my list due to the combat and amazing PvP, but since TES:O "draws more inspiration" from GW2 than WoW I may give it a try as long as it has a decent combat system and PvP as satisfying as GW.
Hoping they will show it at E3.