After all the time we've spent waiting for Bethesda to release the ability to dual wield, why on Earth would they make it so awkward and unimmersive? When you sheathe weapons, your offhand just disappears? Really? Even the unofficial Oblivion dual wielding mod had a better system than Skyrim does, and that was done within the rules of Oblivion, in which true dual wielding was supposed to be impossible.

On top of that, combat with dual weapons is far more clumsy and awkward than it needs to be. I get that they were going for realism, but there are a lot of aspects about Skyrim that they could have made more realistic instead - like people being electrocuted for 20+ seconds and still charging at you.

And staves don't even pretend to be sheathed anywhere on your body, what is with that?

Seriously Bethesda, why would you release an unfinished game? Take the extra time to make the game truly incredible before shipping it out. It's so much better to delay a game than to meet your deadline with a game that does not live up to its potential. Unless of course Bethesda simply doesn't care and just wanted the money.

It's not nitpicking. Nitpicking would be going into things like the lack of a character model in the inventory window to preview gear. This is a major combat mechanic that numerous people have been looking forward to for years, and when Bethesda finally releases it, they do a crappy job of it, plain and simple.

If a modder from Oblivion could get dual wielding to work properly then Bethesda has no excuse.

It's like promising your son an awesome new toy for his birthday, and then buying him some 10cent piece of crap.

Because they are stubborn and wanted a unique release date that of 11.11.11 Cause they thought it would make them look like a 'cool' company.
Did it help the release? No.

I agree, I was so confused when my staves popped out of nowhere. Also, what's the point in staves as a caster, besides saving a little bit of mana? They take up a valuable dual-casting position. The lack of a second sheathe really bothers me as well.

It's a solution to fighting when you run out of mana. Staves are actually very useful.

Sadly this is exactly what nitpicking is. Fussing over minor details that dont actually affect the outcome of the game. It's a sad state of affairs when people who claim to be able to roleplay cannot suspend their own disbelief.

Actually it does affect the outcome of the game. As I said it's not only the awful dual wielding animations that Bethesda messed up, it's the mechanics of dual wielding as well. Fighting with two weapons is so incredibly slow and clumsy. It's bad enough in fact that even though I have been looking forward to wielding a weapon in each hand since Morrowind, I decided to completely re-roll into a caster play style. That has nothing to do with roleplay and everything to do with "details that affect the outcome of the game."

And yes, I get that Bethesda went for realism on their combat mechanics. I was not expecting to execute all kinds of flashy twirls and unrealistic maneuvers, but they took the realism way too far. When you try to make something as real as possible with the control and camera system of a game like Skyrim, your efforts fall flat on their face.

There's also the fact that, apparently, it's impossible to hotkey dual-wielding.

There is a lot about the menus that is very buggy and/or simply not thought out well, but I won't go into that because that subject actually is nitpicking.

because the priority was the game world? which admittedly is pretty damn good. even if its a tad console limited.

the combat ..meh. they couldve borrowed a bit from mount and blade as far as horse archery and mounted combat goes - also the spear and javelin (cmon mount and blade is made by a handful of people literally). maybe they could borrow a pinch from dead island as far as thown weapons and limb cutting and kicking minus the arcadey stuff.

i like the skyrim finishing moves even if they are a bit wonky. someone will mod it eventually and maybe ill start a new character then. i just got my sword to 80% damage and have the head chopping perk. its made the combat a bit more interesting withOUT the sword PARRY from oblivion

Yeah they did a very nice job with the game world, but if I wanted to see beautiful landscapes I'd hop a bus to the art museum or the movie theater. It's great that the landscape is well done, but when it comes at a sacrifice to almost every other aspect of the game then is it really worth it?

Don't get me wrong, Skyrim is a very good game, but it could have been incredible. Relatively speaking Oblivion was far better when it was first released than Skyrim is right now.

Instead of making a new thread I will just slightly hijack this thread.

What exactly is the point of dual wielding melee weapons? The only advantage that I can see is that you can have two enchanted weapons to use as you wish. Oh and the Flurry perk that increases swinging speed when dual-wielding.

1. Its nitpicking

2. YOU think they did a crappy job of it.

3. Modder's from Oblivion did not have to create an AMAZINGLY detailed and packed world that is filled with things people with reasonable expectation wanted in the game.

4. Its like promising your son a BMW and getting him a Corvette

This game is not going to be as polished as games like uncharted 3, and that is because there is way too much stuff to polish. This game gives you the most bang for your buck and thats why there is no way they can get everything perfect for everyone.

I can hot key fine with m Mage. You just need to learn some tricks. But who knows, maybe weapons have a different behavior than spells.

You can dish out damage much quicker. And if you hurt a dragon enough to down him, charging him and doing one charge attack with both weapons can kill it. The double charge attack is ridiculously strong.

As I said, if I wanted beautiful and "AMAZINGLY detailed" worlds I would watch a movie or check out some art. I don't think having a proper dual wielding system in the fifth installment of a game is an "unreasonable expectation".

Haven't tried it myself, but apparently when you press a spell once it goes in the off-hand, press it again and it goes in the main-hand. But each weapon hotkey is a different weapon, so you can't press it twice and pull out a completely different weapon; I guess you just put it away on the second press. If you hotkey two separate weapons and press one then the other, they just both keep replacing the main-hand slot.
They should have simply given the option to utilize both slots in the same hotkey.

I gave up on hot keying. I just Q and pick from there. It slows the game down, but in a pinch, I need accuracy of weapon choice. I even use the full-on item menu sometimes in battle.

I haven't tired dual wielding weapons yet... i don't understand the complaint about the staves... is this an aesthetic thing, or is there something wrong with the way they are used?

I do find the menus very clunky. I have many, many items and it is hard to scroll through and find them. They really need pouches/sub menus for stuff. I think they had this in older games, but I could be confusing this game for another.

Madden NFL
Call of Duty
Other games that come out each year with practically no changes.

That's only caring about money. I'm not sure how a game that took six years of development and has such a host of changes can be considered a "quick cash grab" If you're gonna troll at least try.

Did you ever even play the other games? This is the first time they've done a dual-wielding system. It's new ground for the series and yes some kinks are still being worked out. Personally I'm glad I don't feel completely held back unless I'm dual-wielding I like that there's balance and there's a good reason to still use a shield (especially with a couple perk points in Block a shield is a lifesaver).

6 years to produce such an awful mechanic that the community has been begging for since before Morrowind? I get that the game is immense and there are so many facets to it that not everything can be perfect. That is fine, but that is really only relating to minor bugs or the lack of some unimportant features, not something huge like dual wielding.

Bethesda used the advent of dual wielding as one of their major selling points of the game, and this is what they ended up putting into the game? What they have implemented now is a weekend job at best, and quite honestly it's embarrassing.



I did play the other games, did you? Did you ever use the Unnecessary Violence mod in Oblivion? Because the author of that mod did a better job at dual wielding than Bethesda did, and that was within a game who's rules were supposed to exclude dual wielding. If a mod author can do a better job than a fully paid development team, then Bethesda needs to start thinking about doing a little outside hiring.

It's...not awful it's pretty powerful. Like anything if you're sold on dual-wielding GET PERKS FOR IT. That's the idea, yes if you try to do it without those of course you're not going to be great at it. What's your big issue you can't block? Well you're dual-wielding you've decided for an aggressive combat style not good at avoiding damage. You keep your distance and dodge around the enemy. If you're going to a dual-wielding dervish of death you need to be on your feet, you can't sit back and soak the damage obviously that's not the fighting style.

Think about what a mod is. It's using an already made system to concentrate on ONE ASPECT. Those large mods usually take years; granted there's only a person or several working on them but they're focused on a single goal using a pre-made system to guide them through it. The dev team has to break fresh ground and make everything in the game. World design, physics, quests, NPCs, dungeons, items, getting the sound to work, designing weapons, spells, armor..etc etc etc. Do you see the difference?

It's like taking an already-made car and making a better steering wheel for it. Okay your wheel might be better than the cars engineers made but they had to build the ENTIRE CAR and that was after all the time going into designing things, working out the kinks and so on.

I'm not complaining about the viability of dual wielding, I'm complaining about the mechanics and actual execution of attacks. Dual wielding feels sloppier and more awkward than trying to swing two baseball bats with your hands manacled to your legs. It doesn't really matter how powerful it is. If viability were the only concern then the in-game console and a few cheats would take care of the problem. However the console cannot fix Bethesda's lack of foresight and common sense.

I really hope HeX decides to remake his UVII mod once the CS is released, because he is by far better qualified for this kind of thing.



I don't think you quite understand the Unnecessary Violence mod. The author did not have the advantage of using an "already made system", in fact it was quite the opposite. The Oblivion engine did not allow for dual wielding. The author did not have to start from the ground up; he had to do something worse, in that he had to work around a system that was trying to make his work impossible.

Also, you do realize that "the dev team" is not just one team of people that creates the entire game right? They have completely different sections of the game being designed by completely different teams. So it's not like 10 people are creating the entire game from the ground up. World design, physics, quests, sound, these are all made by completely separate teams, so there is no excuse for whoever designed the mechanics to have dropped the ball so far.

If its something that affects the entire experience why is it nitpicking?

We were promised a PC friendly UI.

Its like promising someone a Harley custom made for you, and instead getting a generic razor scooter.

*high five for anologies.