you guys have a point with the trailer having the dragon + spider react to you , but these guys saw a 45+ minute demo they felt that there was alot of hacking away at your enemy, I will be majorly dissapointed if by e3 the combat looks like oblivion + finishers because I love playing melee characters.

They have 6 1/2 months to polish and what we've seen is pre alpha.

If you ever see something that is not perfect in trailers or on screenshots then just keep in mind that Bethesda has still 6 months (or 5 next month or 4 the month after next month or...) before the game is in stores. They will improve and add everything you could ever think of during that time, apart from finishing the content they have planned anyway, optimizing the game for all the various system and fixing all the thousands of bugs that are left till the game reaches gold status. And then they package and ship the game to retailers of course, but that won't take longer than a day or two I guess.

As you can see, there is never a problem, Rome was built in a day as well (IIRC). So don't worry if you see or read something that is not 100% perfect.

you're absolutely right , I guess im worried that combat isnt on the list of things they want to improve, or that they feel that oblivion combat + finishers is enough for skyrim,im hoping thats not the case because I do have faith in bethesda that they can improve it

Say it ain't so! I hope the combat system is full on and stragetic, i'de love to actualy feel like I hit flesh instead of air when i'm fighting a monster. Unless its a ghost, they are excused

You guys are worrying about something we know very little of and are just nitpicking about the smallest things. Look at what they did well and maybe youll see there goal to set the combat as far as hit reactions, as an example what about when the undead nord guys "forgot there name starts with a D" his/her head folds back when the axe hits his head and likely breaks off. Seriously guys the only thing im worried about is how long the line will be when i go to pick up my copys.

Hitboxes might be better, but the combat system in these games have never been that great. I like more tactical, and better AI. But I think it will still be a pretty good game, as I generally run ranger style, Bow, then melee, though I think ill go mace this time around to change it up from swords.

Improving combat is one of there top prioritys. Todd has spoken many time about the importance of combat in TES(after all you spend so much of the game in combat) and making it better in SR.

This. Seriously the game is not done yet.

Yeah, but the game has still come a whole lot in development. There's not much time left compared to what it was from the start.

A lot of time will most likely also go to finding bugs and fixing them.

This is more relevant for questions of adding new stuff though. There's so much more I want Skyrim to have before its release. Better graphics (more advanced lighting & shaders especially), climbing, mounts...

I hope they will have time for that.

I guess my concern may be misplaced because its pre-alpha im just hoping that they make the combat fun visceral bloody and addictive.

i've always wanted a game with good melee combat and an awesome open world, i've had half of that dream in oblivion ( open world ) and half of it in dark messiah ( good combat ) Once i heard skyrim will have both my hype- o - meter went through the roof

and maybe that hit detection IS one of the bugs they're trying to fix? keep in mind, not all bugs are done in the form of game crashing or [censored] disappearing

yeah thats what i was trying to say. thats reasonable.

but not every issue will be completely fixed. I think the style of combat used in OB just had inherent flaws that will carry over. its still going to be awesome, but i know people will jump on anything that isnt flawless

Just realized that
Edited my comment and said it was more relevant for adding new stuff.

I hear you.

Skyrim will still be awesome. My social life ends 11.11.11

I was more worried by a comment I read that there would be no blocking whilst just wielding a 1-H sword/axe/etc.

Whatever happened to this thing we called Parrying?

I didn't put too much stock into the Giant Bomb article after that same website said you can dual weild spells just like in Oblivion. Lost all credibility right there.

No, the spider took a step packwards and it seemed to react very well to the hit.

But the scene where the two guys fight, the other guy just stands there "Ouch ouch ouch..."

EDIT: Oops, the guy reacted to the hits and didn't just stand there, sorry.

XD excellent illustration. A+

Plus i just watched the spide bit over and over and over. It steps back people, watch it's legs.

The main thing is that all articles told us what they SAW. None of them actually played the game, so the experience could be different if you can play the game yourself. This mainly shows on the block comment, they've said block and shield bash looks the same as Oblivion. Hardly, because you couldn't control your shield bash in Oblivion as far as I know...

The only real problem if whenever the enemies will have ridiculous amount of health or not, because otherwise Oblivion combat wasn't that bad. It wasn't the "mindless hack and slash" everybody tend to talk about, you had to wait and look for openings.

TES games never had the greatest combat. As long as the world is compelling, I'm fine with that.

The graphical representation of combat is less important to me. I'm concerned about AI and strategy. I don't want to see another game in which you can defeat almost anything by just repeating swing, swing, block.... swing, swing, block..... swing, swing, block..... I want to see opponents move more, dodge more, switch up their tactics more, that sort of thing. I'm far less concerned about what they look like while they're doing it, and will be happier with better combat with the same graphics than I ever could be with the same combat with better graphics.

I'm really glad to see a people defending the combat through it's "Feel" rather than how it looks. We don't actually know how it feels in your hand. I mean, does the combat in say, Crysis look any different than point and shoot? A better example might be New Vegas. The gunplay feels so varied just through the statistical differentiation of the weapons in that game.

Hopefully combat doesn't become too "action/twitch".... I mean, yeah - Oblivion combat is obviously "action" style. But then you have real action/twitch games (almost all in third person, so you can see what's going on around your dude) where you're constantly tumbling/rolling/jumping and shooting off "Weak-Weak-Weak-STRONG-Finisher, woohoo!" combos.... sure, that was fine in Divinity 2, but that's not what I really think of when I think "TES".


The timed shield blocks has me a bit worried on that front....

I think timed blocking will help the combat, holding down the block button for all time is boring timed blocking is alot more skill based without going all out like Divinity.