I find magic much more interesting.

I've tried just about all types of combat. Two handed is the most fun for me, next to archery.

For me, using a two handed weapon only would be boring... slow swinging, and all that... I've never rolled a total melee char, only a sneaky char, but when I'm forced to melee I prefer the sword shield combo: Swinging with your sword, different power attacks... shield bash, shield block, shield sprint... there's just more to do. I personally think shield sprint is kinda OP, at least in 1 on 1 combat, but whatever, it's something extra. I think melee charcters would be complete if they had lots more abilities. Take Dead Rising for example: Walking on Zombies, Drop kicking, all those different abilities added to skyrim, in a way that worked in the skyrim world, would make melee ten times more fun for m3.

I play mage characters too.

I am going to have a LEET clean up.

Forum rules-

Back on topic, cut out the niggling at each other and stay constructive. Thanks.

No, no they were not. Finishing moves in Skyrim are more about theatrics than anything else. In Skyrim you can only perform finishing moves on the last opponent, while in Dark Messiah you needed to be in the frenzy mode to perform them and there wasn't any kind of theatrical camera business going on (Sometimes a special animation wouldn't even play and just dismemberment occurred). Or then there was the ground stab which required your opponent to be laying on the ground for you to stab him. Quite different visually and in application.


Quick strikes in Dark Messiah were more of a weak pitter-patter flurry where as in Skyrim they're not. Power attacks in Dark Messiah was an attack that you can chamber indefinitely and caused knock-back or stagger depending on the map and direction used (It played into the physics gimmick of home-running your opponents out of the map), very different from Skyrim. On paper they may sound similar at certain points, but if you've ever played either games and thoroughly anolysed them, you know they play and feel far different.


I don't find it all too annoying. Most movement systems in modern games are like that as opposed to olden times when one would accelerate from 0 to 100 in less than a single millisecond.

re: paragraph length.... many style guides suggest that, for readability, on-screen paragraphs should be shorter. Text on paper is perceived somewhat differently. (similarly, "conversational" styles of writing tend to shorter paragraphs than more formal report writing)
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re: "unresponsive" combat

I'd guess that the viewpoints are divided between the people who've played games like M&B or Dark Souls, and the people who're coming from more "basic" combat systems. The latter group doesn't see a problem - combat's like other games they've used, and seems pretty good. Meanwhile, it's just not like M&B, so people who want that kind of stuff can only be disappointed.



Personally, from what I've heard about M&B combat, I have no desire at all to play that game or ones like it. The whole thought of having to multitask multidirectional movement, free-form sword swinging, and having to do active/timed/guided blocking..... I'm not that amazing a twitch player. "Press X to attack, Press Y to block" is more my speed. (I could never do arcade fighting games very well, either - between remembering all the "forward-quarter-circle+Strong/Strong/Weak" combo moves and then the timing for things like counter-throws..... nope, just can't do it.)

Yes, I kind of lament the trend away from the old "turn-based" RPGs, where you picked your character's/parties' actions off a menu each turn; or spent action points to plan their moves on a grid. The push towards more and more furious combo-riffic action.....

I've played games like Mount and Blade and Jedi Academy and I don't feel the same way that some of the other folks who've played those kinds of games do. They just tend to have unrealistic expectations. If you go expecting X and get Y, you might get disappointed.

As far as unresponsive combat goes, I disagree (Generally speaking). You can make plenty of complaints or suggestions about Skyrim's combat system, but it's far from unresponsive. If I want to bash, I can. If I want to move in a certain direction, I can. If I want to sprint right then and there, I can. if I want to attack, I can. There's nothing "unresponsive" about it. (There are some glitch/buggy exceptions, but they're just that, glitches/bugs)

quote: 1."Add ability to cancel attacks that already started by pressing the block button"


actually, all you have to do is hit the direction pad, change weapons (or press current one twice) and get out of the pause. your attack will stop.

however, i don't feel it's realistic, at all. and, for me, it is cheating.

I've been playing a Nord character who uses no physical weapons, but summons dual bound swords or bound bow, supplementing his combat with disabling spells (fear, calm). It's been awesome. Third person view dual-wielding boundswords is a sight to behold,

He's a big hulking brute with one "white" eye, a scar over the other, and warpaint, with a bald head. He is a badass.

Okay, I wasn't very clear there, I admit. Nothing wrong with some realistic movement acceleration. The problem is when it just crosses the point where I can't properly control my actions anymore and am forced to move somewhere by a 'momentum' that is far beyond what you'd experience IRL. Take something the size of an axe and swing it. Sure, you'll feel that. But it won't pull you nearly as much as it does in Skyrim.



I think you know what I meant. Yes, in Skyrim they are triggered by the enemy being about to die anyway, while in Dark Messiah you had some sort of adrenaline bar thingy. That is a difference. What I meant was the difference in regard to how it annoyed me in combat, and in both cases, they were animations that played when I didn't want them to play, not triggered by myself but by something beyond my control. And as I said, in Skyrim they're even worse due to the 3rd person stuff happening at random. Luckily they usually don't occur in the middle of combat, yes. Otherwise I'd go nuts.


They might not be identical, but the general idea is the same. I already said that the whole environment stuff isn't in Skyrim, so yes, using power attacks to push an enemy towards some randomly placed spikes that make no sense at all isn't something that happens in Skyrim. But you actually named a big problem in how Skyrim has the power attacks poorly executed: Neither can I abort them, nor can I hold them, if I decide that I'm going to do a powerattack, the next 2 seconds my character will, while being completely out of my control, perform that powerattack, no matter whether the enemy I wanted to kill already died by then because an arrow hit him, making me waste the stamina anyway, or hit whoever runs over the body at that point, because I can't abort, either. Sure, I could turn around, but in large fights, I don't want to turn my back towards the enemy, and my companions are likely behind me.




Yes, I'd be fine with a classic turn-based system. There are some very well executed ones. At least they don't pretend the player was in control of anything while actually it's only about slashing down hit points. They were about dice rolls and hit points and nothing else, and they were honest about it. And might even look awesome due to AI fighting AI and, thus, less unexpected events occuring and things being more easy to time and lay out for the Developers.

I've always preferred magic users, or magic/combat hybrids to melee types, TES games or otherwise. When I was creating custom classes in Morrowind, I would always find myself adding in a bunch of magic skills, and only a few combat and stealth. The first character I beat the game with had 7 magic skills, light armor, marksman and long blade.
In Skyrim, I'm probably using more melee than ever, though this may owe in part to the small selection of Destruction and Conjuration spells, and the lack of custom spells. My Archery is pretty high too,

I love melee combat.

I can`t get enough of the moment when I pull out my sword and meet the enemy eye-to-eye to clash in sparkling steel again and again, dodging, parrying, waiting for the chance to go for the killing blow. You and he in a choreographic dance of death. Damn I could write poetry about it!

I could do this stuff over and over again and not get bored. I`m not happy if I haven`t cold steel in my hands.

But that`s just me I guess, I`m a natural warrior.

I feel like sword and board is the only enjoyable combat style in the whole game it's not nearly as repetitive as other builds usually i find warriors are extremely repetitive but in skyrim there the least repetitve

Honestly, what you're describing doesn't occur in any of the videos I've seen of Skyrim or in any of my experiences when playing Skyrim. You sure have a way of making a lot of things sound very rhetoric without providing any real solid details.


This seems to be a popular line among these forums. How about you convey what you mean as clear as possible and as direct as possible instead of relying on other people "knowing" what you meant.


I was really supposed to know all of that, of course. I was supposed to know that you were speaking about your personal annoyances when you were claiming that Dark Messiah's finishing moves and Skyrim's finishing moves were the same. Of course. Silly me.

In any case, like I stated before, they're the same in the sense that they share a similar concept, i.e. finishing moves. It does not mean that Skyrim drew influence from Dark Messiah. If anything, people believe that Skyrim drew influence from Deadly Reflexes' finishing moves.


Contradiction. It's like saying that Skyrim and Dark Messiah may not be identical, but they're generally the same (Both provide first person view).


That's because Skyrim did not draw influence from Dark Messiah. If anything, it's a far more refined Oblivion system.


All you've shown is that Dark Messiah and Skyrim share similar concepts in combat. That is all you've shown. I could say the same about Mount and Blade and Skyrim. Furthermore, what you've described isn't so much a problem as much as it is a design decision. It's quite simple. If you want to do a power attack, you have to make sure you time it correctly. Simple as that. If you're throwing around power attacks all willy-nilly, that's on you.

They're meant to be timed and positioned correctly and they're not supposed to be super forgiving. A lot of games work like this. Where they don't let you cancel an attack or technique after you've fired it because otherwise it'd be too forgiving and easy. You're just too used to Mount and Blade where you don't have to commit to anything. Think of power attacks like a Mount and Blade kick. Once you throw it out there, you can't cancel it.


You're better off finding another series then. Although I find your little banter about the player not being in control to be quite funny and inaccurate. To be perfectly honest with you, I just think you're just bad at playing Skyrim's combat system and therefore blame the system rather than yourself.

To be honest I don`t really like threads that tend to insinuate that everyone should like ONE way of being. there`s another one says `how can everyone not be a mage?` or similar.

Everyone`s different. Some of us like to do things from far away where we cannot be hurt or even seen (like sniper, archer, mage), but others of us prefer the close and bloody approach where we see our enemy close (the grunt soldier, ancient warrior) and then we get the inbetweeners and the `I must be everything` people.

Everyone`s different.

Melee combat can be more challenging and tactical than ranged one, I give it that. But what totally disgusts me away from melee combat and makes me resort to it very seldom, is the silly killing blow/cut animation. Not only I'm not into that..style of action animation, it also suddenly brings me out of first person view and leavs me disoriented once the animation is over, especially, if the battle isn't over yet.

I don't like the melee combat in Skyrim for two reasons: 1. the animations are terrible and 2. I can't hit anything, mostly because of the animations. I hate power attacks because the swings are so ridiculously wild everything I fight just goes "LOL =P" and slowly sidesteps the blow. I've hit things less in Skyrim than I did in Morrowind where your chance was determined by dice rolls.