Anyone else bothered by this? I was going to start a dagger character, but the animations are totally putting me off. You swing them around like they're a sword or an axe. I've also noticed single bladed swords slice necks with the blunt side of the weapon for sneak attacks. The blades on most daggers are also ridiculously wide.

I thought by limiting the diversity of weapons they were going to get this sort of stuff right. They might as well have just tossed in spears and let us swing them around like great swords or battleaxes.

At least in Morrowind, you could toggle "best attack" and use most weapons in the most sensible way. Shame to see them going backwards with this aspect of melee combat.



I mean it can be something pretty basic -

Sharp, pointy weapons - quick stabbing and slashing animations (daggers and smaller swords)
Single blade and/or broad blade weapons - chopping and slashing (axes and larger swords)
Blunt weapons - heavy, chopping animations (maces and warhammers)

They didn't want all weapons to feel the same, IIRC, but weapons actually feel more alike than they did in Morrowind, a game they made almost 10 years ago now.

You can stab with a dagger....

They don't want to do the work to create so many separate animations.

I don't even think every one handed sword should use the same animations. Different weapons should have different movesets but alas animation is like BGS kryptonite.

Also I want to be able to use any weapon from hatchet/longsword size and up with two hands if I so choose. I should be able to have a one handed and a two handed fighting style for a longsword and depending upon my grip the perks for either two handed or one handed come into play.

All dagger wielders in skyrim are aspiring chefs

I love my dagger assassin and think the animations are very good. I'm usually getting the death scene animation though.

Slashing with daggers is how you do it. Only amateurs stab with a knife. Knives/daggers are for CUTTING!

Tell that to Ezio. I thought Skyrim was gonna give me sneak assassin killing ability, instead I just get close and slash a guys neck WTH!

Animation deficit is made up for in speed and stamina usage.

Totally not that big of a deal, but I hear ya.

It's not a big deal for some people, but it bothers me enough that I can't play a dagger based character. Also really svcks there's no bound dagger. Of all the weapons to not have a bound version of, it's one of the most stereotypical mage weapons.

Yeah, the weapons bother me too. In Skyrim:

- Swords are giant unwieldy clubs.
- Axes are giant unwieldy clubs.
- Maces are giant unwieldy clubs. With blades and pointy bits on them to distribute the impact of the swing to multiple points, thus weakening it.
- People are bags of blood that you can decapitate with a single swing of a dagger.
- You can keep a bow drawn indefinitely. Try that with a 120 pound composite bow, or even an English longbow. Hell, try that with a modern 40lb sport recurve bow.

Now, I realize that this is a game, and the weapons are at best symbolic representations of what would happen in real combat. But as the series gets visually more realistic with every new release, these things start to stand out more. It feels like the animators and modelers have never though about how the weapons are supposed to work physically.

Not if you're facing an armored opponent, like you mostly are in Skyrim. Many daggers from the time period of Skyrim's Steel Plate armor didn't even have sharp edges. Dagger cuts are for scaring people and/or bar fights.

http://i.imgur.com/XCyMK.jpg

Oh snap, didn't even notice that.

Considering combat is easily 60 percent of this game, maybe they should have put more effort into weapon types.

The overwhelmingly negative amount of posts since launch have put me on the positive offensive, largely blinding me to ACTUAL issues. Yes, weapons need work to be sure.

I rescind my prior comment and acknowledge obvious fault

You know what would be cool with daggers? Throwing

Yeah, combat is where the majority of my gripes with Skyrim are. This might be considered blasphemy by a lot of posters, but I'd have taken a game world half Skyrim's size if it meant we got an enjoyable combat system for once. Replay value really suffers when so much of the game is combat, but the combat isn't very fun. I still enjoy exploring, which is the reason I buy TES and Beth games, but it's gotten to be a bit frustrating seeing so little progress when it comes to combat. If they had a more dialogue and character heavy game like Bioware often makes, it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but Skyrim is pretty shallow in that area. And even Bioware games have better combat by a landslide.

No, both styles can be used. Slahing is the safer choice whoch allows you to keep your oponent at a longer distance, but you are less likely to do major damage. Stabbing is the more risky way, and IRL will force you to make sure the person you stab cannot do anything back. If he/she have 10 seconds left to live you can be sure they will use them to hurt you. You do major damage to the one you stab however. A proffesional, non-martial art(as in not following set rules for moves etc) knife fighter will likely use both, but finish with a stab.

Also: The Romans used the Gladuis Segmentata(spelling anyone?) which were designed to stab. It could slash and chop, but they seemed to think it was a complete waste of time since stabbing is more effective, as reflected in their formations which did not allow for much slashing.

Stabbing's only good if you are certain of hitting a vital organ. Otherwise, it's best to open someone up. Especially around the stomach area. A person can still fight with a hole in their guts, despite that they'll probably die in the absence of medical attention after some days. They CANNOT fight if they're trying to keep their entrails in, or if their entrails are looped around their feet.

The U motion under the stomach is one of the most effective ways to kill someone and render them helpless.

Gladius Hispaniensis I assume? You might have confused that with Lorica Segmentata, the armor. Yeah, they were mostly stabbing weapons. The legionaries would use them to stab at the opponent from the cover of their large shields in formation, typically after trying to disable their opponent's shield with javelins.

They are already helpless, if they're letting you do that.

Depends I guess satisfying none of the less: if they are trying to murder you that is.

Slashing is genrally how an amateur would fight, bacause it is safe. To open someones gut as you mentioned it would require you to move in, stab to get the knife deep enough and then use a slashing move to open the wound. For all purposes that is a stab, since simply slashing at someone with a dagger or knife will not cause beforementioned effect.

Of course, silly of me.

Welcome to the Skyrim forums people above me is how to disembowel somebody.

Cheers

Yes, now that you mntion it it might not have been such a good idea to give people the recipe for that

Yeah I just had to say it.
Its a discussion about daggers in game then it goes into disembowelment, priceless.