I myself prefer the combat in 1st person, It makes it more immersive playing in 1st person, but as I said, that's just me, although I do like roaming around in 3rd person, to see my character exploring Skyrim

I frequently jump to 3rd-person with the view pulled as close into my character as possible when playing dual-wield melee characters. Sometimes I find the targeting a bit goofy (something about the actual crosshair not lining up with where my character looks like he's swinging, or something), especially with charging power attacks. I also fail at blocking with a shield in 3rd-person.

3rd person to see myself.
Normally play first person. Depends how I feel

Despite never being able to get the feel of FPS, or any kind of 1st person perspective in games (like driving games), I'm pretty comfortable sneaking around dungeons in FP sniping draugrs with arrows. Outside of that, I'm a 3rd person player all the way. MUCH more comfortable for me.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind playing first person, but combat is so much smoother in 3rd, mainly due to the fact that (unless on PC where you can modify FOV) you have no peripheral vision in first person, so it's like trying to fight with tunnel vision.

third person fighting makes no sense to me.

it is an rpg. how am i supposed to feel like i am playing a role, if i can see and dodge enemies that stand behind me? 1. person in fights. ALWAYS.

99% in third person, 1% in 1st when I need to pick stuff up off a shelf or do something close up. First person just makes me feel sick if I try and use it for long.

Again, it's the only approximation of peripheral vision there is...your field of view you can react to in FP is actually worse than your field of view in real life...

It's strange, I play MMOs in third person, always. I don't play all that many shooters. But Skyrim just feels right in first person, I only go third person for little RP cinematics of my own devising.

To me it is not which view is "better". It is more about which gives me the best experience.

In third person view it feels like I am controlling someone else, because I am looking at a character who is clearly not me. That's OK and I don't object. A voiced PC for that view is not distracting and I actually prefer it in that view. The looks also become much more important there for obvious reasons.

I prefer the first person view, though. It is as if I am looking through the eyes of the PC. I am also glad that the PC is silent. Both allow me to make the experience more personal. In that view how the character looks is less important as well. That way it is easier to play any character, including myself.

The cool thing is that Skyrim allows me to switch between the two and that is sometimes handy when trying to find a good location for the attack. But as soons as I've found one, I'll switch back.

Not sure if this is a rare bug I have encountered (I didn't see it mentioned before), but as soon as I am in third person view the character behaves awkward, and starts to shake a bit. As soon as I sheath the weapon that's gone. Strange.

I see it's usefulness, i can't remember how many times i've died because i did not know i was getting destroyed by someone behind me, but i find that it's to hard sometimes to land the shots, so i stay in First Person

every once in awhile i'll momentarily go to 3rd person, but, it's for a specific reason.

combat is 1st person only!

exploring can sometimes be 3rd person.

I use 3rd person a majority of the time unless I'm lining up a shot with my bow.

Animations will always look better in 3rd person, because the players can't stand having 3rd person animations also in 1st (can't see weapon hand i.e.). I feel the game have a rather narrow FOV, whereas in other games (Arma2/OA) the view is wider but we also get to "zoom in" (actually that view is the normal one, it's the wide view that is zoomed out, but this is something we desperately need in that game due realistic distances etc - not critical in Skyrim).

But no, I never use 3rd person. Not in Arma2/OA and not in Skyrim. I just can't play in 3rd person, I can't even count how many times I've died on horseback due to this. That means there aren't many RPGs out there for me.

I use 3rd person in Skyrim only to check my outfit, and to confirm whenever somebody tells me I'm walking around naked. I HATE how our character doesn't show up on the inventory screen!!

There's a bit of that, too, for me, and that goes all the back to when I'd try to watch friends play Doom in the mid-90s.

really? that's amazing to me. the amount of yes, "immersion", i get from first combined with the lack of immersion i get from 3rd is unbelievable.

do you get carsick easily? can you read while in a car? lol!

Never fight in 3rd person.IMO,3rd person combat is only ok in shooters

I have gotten sick from reading while a passenger in a car before, but never in a bus or plane, nor did I get seasick when I was in the Navy. Of course, I never read while I'm driving.

I must say i have played virtually the whole game in third person,like to see whats going on around me.Played too many games in first-person.

same here

3rd person running with 2 daggers looks cool. same with a bow.. other then that no 1st person all the way.

No, 3rd person is horrible, only a lesser being would use it.

Yes, melee combat is easier/more interesting in 3rd person. I find that archery is just the opposite- really tough to impossible in 3rd, but easy in 1st. My biggest problem is I like to use bow AND melee, so have to constantly switch between them, and honestly, I usually forget to switch to 3rd when I draw my sword.