Probably, but given how you can decapitate people using a mace by slicing their head off (yes, it's not knocking their head off, you slice their head off with a mace), I think such intricacy of combat will never register in the minds programmers of Bethesda. And you also pointed out how weird it is that bow is completely self sufficient in this game (enemies in your face? just shoot them point blank no problem lol).

That's why I think it has to be something as big as mounted combat for Beth's programmers to realize that spear should function different than just longer sword.

Again, where have I "aimed a cannon" at anybody for their preference? Have I not said, multiple times, that I've never played Morrowind and have no problem with people liking Morrowind?

My problem is when people reduce it to:

(1) Spears should be in Skyrim.
(2) Why?
(3) Because they were in Morrowind.

That's just pointlessly absurd, and if you take many of the arguments in favor of spears, and scratch just a little below the surface, that's what you get: that they should be in Skyrim because they were in Morrowind and Morrowind was the best so any change from Morrowind is a change for the worse. I've seen people angry at the absence of medium armor, at the environment which looks too Earth-like to suit them, at having voice acting instead of text speech like in Morrowind, at the fact that the glass armor doesn't look like the glass armor in Morrowind, at the fact that the ebony armor doesn't look like it did in Morrowind, and so forth.

I don't care how it worked in Morrowind; that's a stupid argument to me. People can like Morrowind all they like, and people can give real arguments in favor of spears all they like, and I'll engage those arguments. I have engaged those arguments, and I'm not against spears in the game. I just don't want to hear people saying "they should be in the game because they were in Morrowind". They're free to say that if they like, of course, and I'm free to say that's a shallow and absurd argument.

It's simply a matter of why not have the added diversity? You could either have 200 different swords, maces, and axes, or 200 different swords, maces, and axes plus 20 spears. It doesn't take anything away from the game, and only adds another, small detail. It took someone no more than a week at Bethesda to include them with the proper animations. No reason they don't exist.

Same goes for crossbows and throwing weapons. You could certainly roleplay with someone using throwing stars, or an adventurer using a shield and crossbow combo.

Well, it would certainly in the case of mounted combat work differently. But yeah, I think that while swords and axes can be fairly self-sufficient (but not completely; I always carry a bow for certain situations) bows and spears are less self-sufficient. They're much less suitable for one-on-one combat. Again, if they wanna make it so high-level characters, who are basically legendary heroes, can be self-sufficient or nearly so with something like a bow or a spear, that's fine. When you're level forty-something and you've got a spear or archery skill in the nineties, I don't object to realism going out the window. Robin Hood and Legolas can do unrealistically over-the-top stuff with a bow and it doesn't bother me. Achilles can do over-the-top stuff with a spear, and that's fine. But your average character with a skill in the fifties should be faced with some realistic constraints.

And yeah, I always thought of the mace-decapitation as just knocking an enemy's head off.

I'm not too bothered about the lack of spears but if the developers were to add new weaponry, I'd be very happy. More variety is always welcome.

Because it goes beyond "fantastic" into the utterly absurd. You can't use a crossbow and a shield at the same time; you can't recock the thing one-handed, and you can't recock it quickly. If a dude with throwing stars can take on a guy in plate armor swinging a five-foot-long greatsword, then the game has moved into the ridiculous. It's already bad enough that people can run backward fast enough to use bows in melee combat. Unless your skill is in the nineties and you're apparently the guy that taught Robin Hood and Legolas how to shoot, don't pull that crap on me. It gets old.

Granted. I'll probably stock up on weapon mods for my next playthrough.

The perk tree should involve two master skills, one of those is throwing your spear, the other should be the ability to equip a shield along with your spear. Otherwise no duel wielding with spears, as that would be over powered and just plain silly

Okay the master skill should be like spears thrown do 15x normal damage or something crazy, just so it is a one hit kill. But shouldn't be an easy throw

I agree with you there you need more reason then a feature being in a game for it to be right in the next game, but i think because it was in Morrowind and it being part of game jam proves they could have put it in but the Devs just didn't for whatever reason. But either way i think it was a mistake not to add them, because spears fit in Skyrim better then they did in Morrowind and heres why: Spears are the best ground weapon for fending of Dragons, there long so you reduce the risk of getting your head bitten off and you seriosly reduce the chance of being burned, also Javilans would be far better aganst dragons then arrows.

All weapons you can possibly think of: add them to the game! (not guns... etc)

The more the merrier. Flails, morning stars, spear, pole-weapons, whips, claws, thank you.

I don't know why Spears were removed, but like everything else missing, the issue isn't whether or not I liked spears; the issue is I liked choices. Choices made a character build. Without choices the build is much less, the game is much less,and no amount of new castles or unexplored caves can change that.

We have claws, Kajjit use them in HtH there actually kind of deadly with them.

But yeah i think alll those would be cool, whip would be more of a torture device and not effective aganst armor though

This is a game wherein steam piping shoots out murderous, mechanical spiders, fleshless skeletons can move with force and weight equal to that of the well-muscled living and where the sun is a hole in creation. A throwing star breaks your immersion? Really? Not being able to survive getting blasted through the chest with a metre-long spear of ice? Not surviving a dragon literally taking a bite out of you? Not people surviving being shot through the heart? Well, I guess YMMV. For me, realism is relative to the world presented.

Personally, I'd really like spears, flails, throwing stars, chakrams, spell combinations, werebears, weresnowleopards and anything else I can get my greedy gaming hands on. Variety <3

Because Gram, for the reasons you stated, Folks are saying **** spears JUST for that rundown. oi like a broken record I reinterate, -who cares- next thing you know some asinine reason for keeping spell making out for the duration of the TES series will come about. all i care about is more options, and the "it'll never be finished" statement doesnt even apply. beacuse Skyrims two choices of weaponized Combat, Swinging, and shooting arrows aren't exactly the definition of be what you want.

and yes it is a valid reason, Spears got were in Morrowind -FULLSTOP- WHY do people bring that up? because thats the last time they were around, they were an addition. no other reason, not because they think Morrowind is the holy grail of the TES series, its because it was an option added and never continued.

Im with you Safer, the more content the better.

I find the argument that spears can and will be knocked out of the way so easily to be absurd. Any weapon can be knocked aside which is a major part of combat anyways so that argument falls flat on its face. Claymores could be moved easily by a 1-handed sword if wielded right. Adding a shield to the spear allows even better blocking. I am not talking about formations because Skyrim is not about the kind of people who use formations. They are like Vikings and Vikings used spears. They did not form great spear walls and they did not get cut down for using spears in close range. A simple 6-foot wooden shaft with a blade tip type spear is gonna rip a barbarian a new hole in his body. You wouldn't use a wooden sword to kill a knight and you sure as hell aren't gonna use a sharpened stick either. Why do you think polearms are some of the most devastating weapons even for cultures who do not use formations of any kind. The only kind of strike that will actually do damage to a head-to-toe platemail wearer would be anything that isn't deflected or absorbed. Slashes are useless, chops get knocked aside usually, leaving thrusts to do most of the real damage. Spears excel at thrusting damage.

Also, about the whole realism thing, Skyrim lost all of its claim to realism when maces don't crush whatever they strike. A morningstar in non flail form would smash both shield and armor regardless of where it hit. The shield blocking is also absurd, relying on taking the hits rather than deflecting them. You would not take any blow straight and firmly to your shield unless you want to get injured. You deflect the blows so your arm doesn't get broken or your shield too damaged. This also allows you to open up your foe to blows. If you are still not convinced that realism doesn't matter so much in Skyrim, just think about the lack of locational damage. The head, the torso, the arms, and the legs are treated as the same so when I shoot a dude in his buttcheeks, he can still die which is BS. So don't preach about realism in Skyrim when it already has so little.

But even heavy spears are normally a one-handed weapon. The ancient Greek hoplites used them one-handed, and they had very heavy spears, and they carried a heavy shield in the other hand. Also, hand-to-hand spears and throwing spears are different things. Not that it's impossible to throw a spear meant for hand-to-hand combat, but they aren't really designed for it and will be less accurate.


That's a very good argument in favor of spears. I agree that they'd be among the best weapons to use against a large animal like a dragon, although I think a dragon or mammoth should have a chance to snatch the end of the spear and pull it out of your grasp.


Choices are fine, but there's little point for them to put a lot of work into spears if it ends up being purely cosmetic. I'm all for real spears in the game, but if they're just going to make a cosmetic change then they'd be better off investing their time elsewhere.

I want to see polearms in http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=gTVC25hYJaY. Not just spears, but also halberds, glaives, poleaxes, etc.

Oh, on another note, while it may be true that spears were used most often en mass, to assume that one-on-one spear techniques were not developed it stupid. Heck, they're really not that hard to find. Most of them are not European in origin, but there's a reason for that. Most European martial arts were dropped and forgotten when they stopped being useful.

I protest good sir! Spears were most likely NOT the most common weapons used by vikings. Let me explain why. Spears are most effective when used in large numbers by a trained fighting force, capable of working together seamlessly. That is why the phalanx, essentially a moving wall of thousands of spears, (each several meters long) was such a fearsome weapon. The vikings on the other hand, attacked in small numbers and in dissaray, like crazed animals leaving destruction in their wake (also very effective ). They would prefer axes and swords which better suited their very offensive tactics. What's more, they would not have time to form a disciplined rank of spears (even if they did know how) when they jumped off their ships. They had to make very effective use of time in small skirmishes and hacking, slashing weapons are much more useful in such a situation.

However, I WOULD have loved to use spears as well as throwing projectiles (especially javelins) and a larger array of weaponry in Skyrim. They should have adopted the Mount & Blade arsenal.

The spear of ice thing is a graphical issue. Yeah, I wish they'd fix it so that you weren't speared through with ice by an attack which is obviously not instantly one-shot lethal, but as I said, it's a question of just a weird graphical effect. The dragon taking a bite out of people is an execution; I've never had a dragon do that to me and lived. Yes, followers live after it, but then they live through lots of stuff that normally would kill people.

Again, I am all for realism where possible. I don't expect much realism out of magic; as long as the magical fire will ignite the oil on the floor in dungeons, that's as realistic as I expect magic to be, for the most part, so long as it has some sort of internal consistency.

But spears and armor and axes aren't inventions of fantasy, they're real-world objects, and I prefer that they at least make a nod toward realism. People running backwards and stabbing their opponents repeatedly with a spear or shooting them with a bow is just silly.


Spears and flails and throwing stars are all fine. I just don't like the idea that "any weapon is effective against any foe, no matter how silly". It's absurd to be able to take a regular, unenchanted dagger - any unenchanted dagger, no matter what it's made of - and kill a giant or a dragon. I can accept sneaking and backstabbing for huge damage; in that case the opponent is unaware and vulnerable to a well-placed killing blow. But to be able to run up to a dragon or giant and hit them with a dagger until they're dead is just silly. Throwing stars, even more so. They've already made it so that, with the armor cap, a set of hide armor can block damage just as much as any armor in the game, by improving it until you reach the armor cap. That's annoyingly silly. I understand why people like even cosmetic variety - I wish there were more weapons in the game, even though most of them would be only different skins on the same old weapon. But why would you want something like spears to be only a cosmetic change? Why should running around in hide armor and throwing ninja stars at a dragon be just as viable as wearing heavy steel armor and hitting them with a heavy spear or a battleaxe or something? It makes differing weapons completely meaningless, and reduces the game to nothing but The Sims; it means people want spears just because their character looks bad-ass with a spear, even though it plays just like axes or swords or whatever.


"Because it was in Morrowind" is a stupid reason. I see no reason to say that things are supposed to be like they were in Morrowind. You can make that argument if you like, but you won't be convincing anybody.

Completley agree. However hoplites did not throw their spears at ALL since they were several times the lenght of their bodies. I believe they often used the shoulders of the men in front of them as a prop. Instead, both Greeks and Macedonians employed light skirmishers known as Peltasts. These were very lightly armored (often nothing but clothes), used javelins and swords and were equipped with light shields. Their job was to screen the bulky phalanx as well as harass enemy formations, which they did very well due to their mobility over the rocky Greek terrain.

Well, that doesn't bother me, although I have said previously that those sorts of weapons were really from the later Middle Ages and might not fit as well with the old Norse theme and look of Skyrim. It doesn't have to be so narrow, though; after all, they've got Imperial Roman soldiers running around the place too. I wonder how often these sorts of weapons were really used outside of massed formation warfare, but I can't say anything definitive there.

No spears means less options for fighters, same thing with no throwing weapons or crossbows. I take Bethesda's side with this in that, I think if you can't get it in the game properly, either it is too over or under powered, or there is little difference in the feel of a spear versus the feel of another weapon, then there is no reason to put it in. In otherwords, it needs to be both balanced and unique

Yeah, it'd be just as out of place as all the late medieval/renaissance plate armor.

True enough, although there's a difference between the classical era Greek methods used at Thermopylae, and the later Macedonian-style tactics. In the classical era, hoplites were heavily armored and carried spears around eight or nine feet and weighing several pounds, in general, called a doru with the xiphos, a shortsword, in reserve. Philip of Macedon changed all this and instead of hoplites, the phalanx was formed of phalanges, who carried lighter shields strapped to the left arm and wielded the much longer sarissa, which could be up to 21 feet long; a shortsword was still carried as a secondary weapon.

And you're correct that skirmishers used missile weapons, at least in the later Hellenistic period after Macedon's reforms of the phalanx system.