So I watched Ironclad last night with a few friends and had an interesting conversation. If you haven't seen it is based of events that happened very soon after the Mangna Carta was signed where the King tried to take Rochester Castle. One thing it really displayed well was the brutality of combat in that time period, in one scene someone cuts of the arm of an opponent then ends up beating another opponent to death with it. Another thing it showed was how a two hander claymore was used defensively, almost as a staff at times.

This of course led to combat realism in games. We first watched a demo of the thief class in Guild Wars II where it was shown how you could use range and positioning with burst damage to make comabt really dynamic. Then we turned to a video of TERA that showed a priest and a berserker in a pvp match. The thing that really bothered me about the berserker was that the sword used was longer then the bersekers body,it was literally drug along on the ground then swung.

We ended of course with a discourse on Skyrim which we are all playing the most right now. I pointed out that two hand weapons regardless of type are swung from a batter up position with one defensive position held for each weapon. I am not saying that the Elder Scrolls has ever been the best combat simulator but really the only change I have seen from Daggefall is the ability to view the swings from third person. While this makes positioning easier the last three games (four if you count Fallout 3) have used the same basic system. They have added tweaks such as VATS and finishers in to the mix but you still swing weapons in the same way with no variation.

I would love to see a system where you can plan a series of 3-4 movements with adjustments done on the fly. Even if it was at the expense of fluid combat I think a system that turned combat more into a thinking match as opposed to who can swing the hardest and most wins the fight.

well i just wish they can make a really REALLY realistic system where mellee combat has more wieght and weapons actually make contact on objects

Bethesda has always embraced a terrible combat system. Not a whole lot has changed since Morrowind, other than slow motion up-close cut scenes.