Also, they don't even have to remove the third-person cinematics, if they'd just let you continue to control your character, even while the cutscene is in effect. It would still allow for the damage confirmation check, and it would prevent instant death from locking you out of your character when there was no valid reason to lock you out in the first place. If they did this though, they would have to remove the bullet-time effect.

(*edit*)
...and another thing. I'm still playing my first character. I don't play for many hours at a time and I go days without playing. I'm building a dedicated sneak archer (no high skill with any other weapons yet)

I have seen it several times where it goes into the kill cam for absolutely no reason at all. I have my bow drawn, and let go of the arrow. The kill cam then follows the arrow while the NPC is allowed to continue dodging the attack, and the arrow misses. When this happens, I get buttmad, because what was the fricking point of the kill-cam to begin with?

Ten percent buffer seems kinda weak... Maybe 20%, because you should be trying to heal yourself before you get below 1/10th of your total health. If you had 250 health, 10% is only 25. A highly trained dagger user can deal over 25 damage with a normal attack. 20-25% would be more appropriate.

I concur. I generally don't think the AI is unfairly overpowered (I think the game is appropriate difficulty; of course people complain about master being to easy, etc. etc... I'm satisfied), but this is a bit annoying.

It doesn't happen frequently, but I recall being decapitated by some lowly named bandit NPC in Dwarven ruins for no good reason (full health). Something that probably deserves correction (even though it's not too big of an issue).

Really?

Another..."Something doesn't work the way I want it to so it must be broken ".

I don't think I've ever been insta-killed.

No, I think this might deserve more attention that that. Considering this is a game feature that precludes player choice (that the player dies regardless of how he plays), this is something that we may want to address.

Nah. It's not broken. It's just pointless and stupid. It wasn't in any othe TES game, and the majority of us find it to be really annoying.

All we want them to do is remove a "feature" that never should have been implemented to begin with.

I'm not even sure that all of us want the feature removed; I think finishing moves are kind of cool if they're sparsely used.
Finishing moves just need conditions (like player health being below X amount, etc.).

If I can assassinate characters with a single shot, it's only reasonable that it can happen to me once in awhile too.

I just look at it as a reminder that I can die quickly too.

Reload and move on.

I didn't mean that we "all" necessarily wanted that, and I should rephrase it to say that a toggle is a better option.

...except NPCs maintain control of their character during kill-cam, and the player cannot.

I don't mind kill cams, but I love options. Bring on the toggle and DB cowl for male PC.

And when I sneak up behind someone and slit their throat they have no control either...or when I stab them from the shadows, or power swing and behead them...the NPC has no control...they just die....gloriously.

Why is it bad that the same thing can happen to us too?

I already conceded that certain attacks do merit a third party kill cam, but others do not. Obviously sneak attacks would render the NPC/player unable to respond, and the third-person camera view during those attacks is actually kind of necessary to illustrate what is happening.

A powerswing should be avoidable, as a two-handed weapon of substantial weight actually takes a moment to swing. They should be able to perform a roll to dodge it if they have the skill. I think there should be more enemies than certain NPCs/draugrs that use words of power, too.

If balance is the issue, then the game is weighted *highly* in the favor of the player. That's just as bad as giving the NPCs an advantage.

I've never had an NPC sneak up behind me, though. That would be awesome!

I already pointed out that NPCs can dodge arrows even when it goes to kill cam. I don't get that privelege when an NPC shoots one at me, though.

Because those kills sometime happen when the player could survive if the game didn't decide it was time to play cinematic kill. Also since you can get eaten by a dragon trough a wall, or get killed in other ways where the the enemy could not physically reach you. And like i've said, i once got by a dragon that was already dead. I landed the killing blow on it, the dragon did the kill animation on me and died immediatly afterward. That has only happened once in several hundred hours, so that was propably just an honest glitch

My game must be bugged, because npcs get locked into death animations, same as me.

I'm fairly certain other NPCs however don't go into the pause however, as I remember being hit quite a few times during, or immediately after, a kill cam kill.

It's not even so much of a problem of getting owned by the NPCs. I *expect* there to be an NPC that can instakill me just as easily as I can instakill them. It would be more like playing with real people.

The issue I have pointed out all along is that, since the developers paid so much attention to detail and realism on so many levels, they're actually taking a step backwards in locking you out of your character controls just so an NPC can kill you.

I don't need a third-person kill cam to appreciate that the NPCs can perform a special move, nor should I have to stand there helplessly going (duh) while they perform one. It's like taking a step back to Morrowind.

Yeah. Companions and everyone else not involved in the kill cam keep moving.

I haven't played with any melee weapons since the beginning of my first character, which is only level 27 right now.

This might only be a problem with archers, but I've watched NPCs dodge my arrows in kill cam, by simply strafing, rendering the kill cam completely useless.

So we want toggles for everything now? Get real.

You realize even WWE games have the option to turn off the replay for when finishing moves land, right?

I just don't understand why this "feature" had to be added, at all, except for them to "show off" what they can render in a video game at E3.

No one said "toggles for everything," just this specific, quite useless, "feature" that is just as bad, no matter whether the NPC gets to do it, or the player.

Honestly, because think about it... You could have your sword drawn back, and be a few milliseconds away from attacking an opponent, and then right at the instant before you release the mouse button, you instead stand there for a second, so another NPC can lob your head off. If you had a leech weapon, that attack could have actually saved your life, but it was denied, and you stood there with your sword above your head, while an NPC gets 3-5 seconds to perform a specialty move.

You could have shouted the "Become Ethereal" power word in that last second, and avoided the attack entirely.

The NPCs could have done the same thing.

Instead, some silly cinematic effect takes priority, and you might as well hit Esc and reload, (I don't even think you can do *that*) to avoid watching that animation for the 300th time.

This is actually a case of it not working the way they wanted it to, because the death check occurs at the wrong point in damage calculation.

What's supposed to happen: raw damage is run past mitigation to get adjusted damage, which is then checked against player's remaining HP when 'rolling' for a kill-cam hit

What actually happens: raw damage is checked against the player's HP when 'rolling' for a kill-cam hit

This is especially noticeable on higher difficulties and at higher levels, when the player often has extreme armor ratings and HP in order to survive due to amplified enemy damage. For example: a L40+ Draugr Death Overlord (one of the main culprits) on Master can deal upwards of 800 HP in raw damage per critical strike if wielding a 2H weapon. Now, a player with capped armor (80% physical resistance) will reduce this to 160 HP per such strike, which is eminently survivable for a character of those levels given the usual HP amounts thereof; however, the 'instant-death' check is made before taking mitigation into account, so said character is eating all 800 points instead, which is guaranteed death to all characters save those who engage in extreme HP stacking.

Note that this does not mean that the kill-cam hits themselves are a bad thing, since they really aren't; rather, it means that their flawed implementation has turned them into a bad thing, especially since they lock out the controls for the duration. If either the lockout or the order of operations were corrected the majority of the complaints would disappear, since then there would at least be a chance to react in some manner.