Going toe-to-toe with a 2 hand wielding bandit, his health is low, mine is at about half, and since he's got a 2 handed weapon, all of a sudden i'm pulled in for an instant-killcam-slow-mo kill :/

Angers me to no end.

What now? Which part angers you?

Come on now. You just don't have enough health/armor. The 2 handed power attack doubles the hit and he just laid a power attack on you. When the hit will for sure kill you you get the finish animation. This works for you too. It's perfectly fair.

It is one of the aspects of the game I enjoy the most. The new combat system lends itself to strategy far more than in Skyrim's predecessors. When facing skilled opponents with two-handed weapons, you have to either dodge in and out with your attacks to avoid power attacks or stun them with a shield or the hilt of your blade before they can launch an attack on you.

Agreed

Absolutely agree. Annoys me to no end when people claim its just "click, click ,click"


What does get on my nerves is the Draug repetitive disarm shouts.

Absolutely not. Control is ripped from my handling to decide combat on whether my health bar is high enough or not. Personally, I like playing with less health as it lends itself toward more tactical combat and less grinding duels of attrition. I don't mind being at low health during a fight if I can outmaneuver or dodge my enemy's strikes and counterattack; that's my combat style: weak in health but agile.

With this system, I can't survive against any old bandit chief because of this incredibly frustrating and frankly cheap mechanism. Why should the fight's outcome be decided for me? I want to win or lose based on my own merits in the fight, not on numbers. It's a step backward.

Agreed wholeheartedly. They wouldn't be annoying if you could easily reclaim your weapons after the fight, but mine disappear half the time, and I can't exactly return to the Companions after all our hard work and just say "I lost Wuthraad." Something tells me I wouldn't remain the harbinger long if that happened.

Hardly. Power attacks change nothing but the animation. If they were not implemented, the attack which killed you would just be the default slash. You would die just the same, it's not as though you reach a certain amount of health and automatically die, you just have to be more careful about moving in and being hit, which would be no different without kill animations.

No I wouldn't; I would easily dodge such a slow power attack (merely running to the side mind you, seeing as we weren't given dodging mechanics, badly enough). Instead, I'm forced to 3rd person (interrupting my 1st person play) and made to watch as my character stands idly for 3 seconds (which I could have easily used to escape said attack) while his head gets split open. It's idiotic. That power attack is made to connect automatically where I could have dodged it; it removes player control. There really is no justifying it.

But, the game didn't decide for you. The game calculated that the hit would have landed, despite your attempt to evade or block or whatever, and that it would kill you.

I've seen this complained about before, with the usual complaint being some variation of "I would have evaded" or "I would have blocked".

You don't evade every blow. You don't block every blow. As evidenced by the fact that your health was not full. Since you CAN get hit, what's wrong with the fact that you got hit?

the problem is that the PC has no viable maneuvering mechanics.

You cannot dodge it once it has started, and it is more difficult to avoid, but it is still possible to evade power attacks. It's all about positioning, much like in a real fight. It makes the game more difficult, and forces you to avoid taking damage when you are already wounded. If you had been slashed several times and were bleeding severely with grave wounds, your ability to react and dodge attacks would most likely be considerably reduced. Injuries weaken you in combat, which is reflected in the greater ability of blows against wounded individuals to a) connect and kill. It is more realistic and more difficult, but there is nothing "unfair" about it.

You have plenty. Stun and retreat, slash and retreat, use the sneak roll (it is actually exceptionally useful for evading attacks), etc. Even more effective is forcing the enemy to adapt to your pace of combat, much like in a real fight, by attacking fast and furious or with slow, but carefully timed and placed, power attacks, and then avoiding your enemies response if he can manage one.

Like the argument you wouldn't continue?

It IS click, click, click. Unless you're sword 'n board or actually use your 2H weapon to block-- it's clickity click click. Magic is click and hold. And please don't go on about how there's this array of complex strategy involved in Skyrim combat. I've tried it all. The ONLY thing I could even remotely call "tactical" is Master difficulty, no follower, sword 'n board, and restoration.

And don't tell me you're dodging power attacks. You're not. Unless you have the block perk to slow time, you're not. You mentioned something before about waiting until your enemy is out of stamina, which is also BS because you can't tell how much stamina they have AND stamina is a broken resource (if I have ONE point of stamina I can perform any stamina-required ability).


I promise you've never used a sneak roll to dodge a strike. You're lying. We're all playing the same game here. You don't "retreat" unless you're doing so to cast a Resto spell. Your enemy moves as fast as you do. Your imagination is quite vivid. Your enemy's pace of combat does not have anything to do with your own.

Edit: "Force the enemy to adapt to your pace of combat"??? Are we playing the same game???

Yes it did. How can the game 'calculate' if I'll successfully dodge an attack or not? It merely looks at my health, sees that the chief's power attack deals greater damage and straight up runs the kill animation. That's the game deciding for me. That's my control in combat being removed. Often it occurs when there's as much as a meter distance between us as well.
Because it feels unfair. If I die because I got hit in combat, that's fine. If the game decides for me that I will get hit in combat where I might feel otherwise, and runs a death sequence over which I have no control, it's effectively ending a fight which I might have won had I been left to my own devices by removing my control and having me die a cheap, automatic death.

I feel strongly about this. It's a terrible addition to combat, in my opinion. Very restrictive. With dragons I can almost understand, given the grandiose nature of the enemy in question, but with Orc bandit chiefs, I can't stand it. (You try avoiding putting points into health and fighting a bandit chief. It hampers combat and punishes my playstyle. I have a right to complain.)

Edit: I hope people don't think I'm a crazy hack'n'slash warrior who doesn't pay any attention. I'm a very careful, light-armoured fighter, with block as my main skill. I use shield bashing as my principal method of opening up the enemy's defenses and countering power attacks (seeing as there's no dodge). Because of the emphasis on bashing, I add a lot into stamina and neglect health somewhat, because I don't need to grind it up where I can block and dodge my attacks. With this playstyle emphasing block, on earlier levels where you still get damaged a fair amount when you block (due to lack of perks), blocking will grind your health down and eventually the animation will begin running. It's a pretty frustrating problem; it discourages my careful sword'n'board playstyle.

i know what's available. i understand the mechanics.

and, in no way do i consider that to be as exceptional in quality or realism as it could be.

Dodging power attacks is as simple as backing up. I constantly dodge opponents power attacks and regular attacks. Perhaps it is easier with anolog sticks than a keyboard. Refer to my previous comment about various strategies.

you just made my point.

Like how we need to "force the enemy to adapt to your pace of combat," or how a sneak roll can dodge a strike? Right. Again, not trying to be a jerk, but I don't believe you for a second.

Welcome to Skyrim; a civil war is going on, dragons are rauaging the land and all sorts of abominations are roaming the countryside but what you have to actually worry about is some illiterate orc hoodlum with a hammer yelling "Skyrim for the Nords!" Welcome to Bethesda's world.

I remember LOTR; War in the North has dodging by rolling. MAN I MISS THAT!!!!

You neglected to respond to my arguments which support his. Once again, it is possible to avoid being subjected to kill animations, and any added difficulty to evasion can be attributed to the weakening of your character due to his grievous wounds, contributing to realism in combat. For a more lengthy response, refer to my earlier comments for added points. And please, you always have control. If you avoid having large amounts of damage inflicted upon your character, you will not be subjected to kill moves. You mentioned liking to enter combat after sustaining considerable damage so that you must focus on being more tactical in fights, but if you enter a fight with a bludgeoned knee and a large gash in your thigh you can't expect to jump out of the way of oncoming attacks as easily. People criticized the ease of melee combat in Oblivion because evasion was too easy and unrealistic, the addition of kill moves adds to realism and fixes an inferior system in which you could outrun opponents while back pedaling with six arrows stuck in each knee and avoid ever being hit by a final blow.

i just think of how the addition of perks could have been used to flesh out the combat.

of course, i wasn't counting on perks trying to replace attributes, but, combat could be exceptional.

at least, better than using my thumbs to go up, side, back.

I, for one, wish you could toggle these animations off and on. I don't like when any of them happen, there's or mine, because it interrupts my play and slows me down. I've seen myself decapitate someone without the animation taking over (though this may have been a glitch) so why should I have to sit through it every time. Furthermore, I've experienced about 60-70% of these animations not even rendering properly due to close quarters, so again, why should I have to stare at my chest for 3 seconds while my character does something off screen...