http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y1XsTwxxg8 You can do a lot more with them (slash, stab, crush, parry) whereas one-handed blades can only slash or stab (badly, if you're up against a heavily-armoured opponent) and it's weapon-on-weapon rather than weapon-on-impenetrable-wall-of-steel.

Aren't there different sizes though?
Somewhere in the darkest corners in te back of my head I think people are thinking of those reeaaally big swords (greatswords?) when they talk about two handed

My apologies, I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to two-handed weapons in Skyrim as opposed to real life.

Although on the subject of real life and Skyrim, I'd say that Skyrim's melee combat is nothing like real life. I'd also say that you'd be hard pressed to find melee combat in any game to be close to real life melee combat.

Damn, you guys are clever! You sure got him with your unparalleled wit and powerful sarcasm, haha!

I'm not being cynical, I am talking about Skyrim. After having played Mount & Blade for so long (and yes, the combat system of that simply IS better. No harm in copying from something that's plain awesome.) I got used to the quick, responsive, accurate system where the sword moves exactly as I move my mouse, and my feet move exactly as I press WASD - and not a millisecond longer. And where I can abort an attack whenever I want. And I'm playing on PC and consider myself an experienced player and usually don't have too bad of a k/d ratio in online games, so it's not me being clumsy, it's the controls. Even Dark Messiah had a better system (although that one made blocking way too easy and also took control away from you).

And don't get me started about the finishing moves that suddenly make me stop fighting for whole seconds, move the camera god knows where, and show me a nice killing scene while I completely lose control over anything.

touche

I think you are being cynical by bringing up Dark Messiah (T'was a physics gimmick). And Mount and Blade's movement system I feel is one of it's weaker points. Especially when castle terrain somehow decides that you should move even SLOWER than the molasses you're already in.

I'd respond to your wall of text in greater detail but since it's a wall of text, I decided not to bother.

Ah, I have found the source to your issues.
Multiplatform

Bringing up a game for comparison makes you a cynic now? Great to know.

I really wish people on this forum could hold discussions without all the petty accusations and pseudo-sarcasm.

Glass house, my friend...glass house

Uh, in my opinion, yes, yes it does. Especially since that game's melee combat system svcked and was just a physics gimmick with a very weak core. I wasn't making any petty accusations in any case, I was only reinforcing what others had already stated.

I like sword-and-spell the most. Hurling a fireball to start it and finishing them with a sword. Epic.

Do you want me to use more paragraphs? I'm sure I can arrange that if that helps. I don't quite know what the criticism is regarding that 'wall of text'. It was so little text that I didn't bother using paragraphs, but if I should, then I'll do that, no problem at all. Dark Messiah wasn't a great game at all. But it had a better combat system. Mount & Blade had issues, of course. The castle terrain is one thing. Another is how normal terrain does not abort attacks when you hit the ground on accident, while static objects do. It's far from perfect, but my point was regarding a specific aspect of that game, and that is combat.

There might be other good examples of games with better combat systems, of course. Better than either M&B, Dark Messiah or Skyrim. But out of the three, my ranking clearly is M&B > Dark Messiah > Skyrim, control-responsiveness-wise.



I must say that I am surprised as to me it is quite clear that Dark Messiah did inspire Skyrims combat system to a great extend. The differences? In Dark Messiah you didn't get hurt at all while blocking, and attacks where faster. There's not that many differences between the combat systems of those games (magic/shouts etc. notwithstanding)

Mount and Blade? Never played this game, but it's not the first time I heard the name though. So it has these features I was describing? Then I probably should look at it ASAP.

As for my way of implementing directional blocking being terrible, yes, I have to apologise: I'm a 100% first-person player so I never considered the impact that this would have on 3rd person players. New animations would be necessary in all cases though. You need to see your weapon being wield horizontally/vertically to block vertical/horizontal swings. This holds true in both 1st and 3rd person. As for how to trigger such weapon respositioning, perhaps for 3rd person players the directional keys would work better than looking up/down etc. Don't know.

Well, all I know is that I loved playing my 2-Hand melee Warrior. I played that character for 100 hours and enjoyed every minute.

All iv ever done is melee in that game, been meaning to make a magic guy for a while now!

Probably because ranged combatants can see more of the battlefield from a more distant perspective. It is quite a pretty battlefield, and that probably skews their judgement.
You, on the otherhand, get a face full of bear.

Melee in 1st person is awkward, clumsy and repetitive.

Melee in 3rd person is fairly awesome, ala Dark Souls, the variety in animation and superior control over your character (and enemies) is simply a higher level.

To each their own I guess. I would say exactly the opposite. There are much better 3rd person melee games out there. Dark souls as you said is one example, the witcher 2 is another and severance: blade of darkness (even if much older) still another.

First person is a different story because there are SO few examples of it in the industry, dead island being the most recent one I can remember. Still, Skyrim is a quite good 1st person melee game in my opinion.

I don like melee at all. I'm more or a sneaky kind of player.

M&B has by far the best melee combat of any game I've seen. Your movement direction and swing direction are both used to enhance or detract from damage. Get the original mount and blade though, not the warband sequel as that one lost much of the skill involved.

Warband lost much of the skill involved? What makes you say that? I mean I find it kind of baffling that you would suggest that it's SINGLE PLAYER prequel involved more skill. O.o...

i don't like it at all. Not because it's boring, but because i get terrible motion sickness, so never use it other than if i get cornered and even then, if the enemies aren't doing much damage, i'll just stick with my bow or I'll use destruction if I'm a mage.

yeah, i could go 3rd person, however, i dislike 3rd person combat in this game. Works well for games like DA etc, but svcks when it's not been properly implemented.

Mount & Blades directional blocking is easier in third person, actually. I'm a 100% first person player myself, and I'm at a huge disadvantage against players in online fights, because of that. They keep telling me to switch to third person because the larger field of view is a massive advantage. Most players use mouse movement for attack and block direction, only few use WASD, because they want to seperate movement from attack directions. (Yet, most people DO move forward while thrusting, or to the side when they attack from the side, because in M&B, damage depends on your movement relative to the enemy. Running into someone with a spear is much more powerful than poking at them while you stand directly in front of them already.)

This.

Combined with running past your target during power attacks, people jumping out of my arrowpath and not being able to block arrows with my shield, it can be frustrating at best.