I saw plenty of combat threads but none on this specific subject.

Were you ever annoyed by the fact that all enemies in Oblivion attacked in the same fashion? When something would attack it would display an attack animation and use the same on-hit-damage-player function that every other enemy would. I think it would be fun, if not heavily immersing, to have a notably unique creature actually have its own unique attack form or consequences.

For example, a woolly mammoth could knock you off your feet if it got a clean hit on you, a spider might be able to grapple you if you let it, trolls could do a little bit of both depending on how they attack you, etc.

In my personal opinion, this is a huge road block to diverse and non-repetitive combat. Combat will still be sort of a bland button masher if in the end every creature attacks in the same way to deal damage, regardless of fancy but meaningless animations.

Thoughts and opinions?

seeing as how they revamped combat for us, I'd assume that they're gonna do the same thing for enemies

They are one huge change is if you get hit your character reacts

Fancy but meaningless animations? Tell that to the guys who were demanding different animations for their Kahjiit and Argonians earlier, and those who, a few days back, wanted different animations for women.
I think it is pretty safe to assume the new larger enemies, such as mammoths and giants have had a bit of work put into the way they attack, the trouble with the grappling you mention is will 1st person players be forced into a 3rd person perspective, like OB's paralysis. Not the ideal solution.
There was a piece of concept art in one of the GI videos, showed a dragon attacking, and the one guy was little more than a pair of feet sticking up in the air, so it looks like you may not be entirely disappointed.

Of course I meant fancy animations do not equal a fancy effect, not that they are not important. We all know that most game play animations are not physics events, but rather an effect must be called at the end of that animation; which implies that animations can have absolutely zero correlation to the effect that it looks like it would have done.

You're right, a grapple event would be hard to implement. That is one reason why I'm skeptical of this being a point in the new combat system. I mean, it's hard! Fancy first person effects are not industry standard and first person games, unless built around the effects on the camera, are quite bland when it comes to knocking the player around an showing a widely versatile character interaction system.

well watch the trailer... if its true that only the wall is not in game, you can see the dragon doing some pretty random stuff, bashing you with his head, breathing at you, flying around and doing swooping attacks, the monsters seem to have randomized attack patterns for sure, but animations.... lots of work, i have an idea for this tho, animations on NPC's could be determined by skill level? for example an npc with a 100 hand to hand skill would go bruce lee on your butt while a npc with 10 hand to hand would attack like a total idiot swing around their arms like a zombie or that guy in two worlds 2? or a guy with 100 in the blade skill would kick your butt Kendo style while one with 10 would swing his sword around like it was a blunt weapon? then for monsters just based on the difficulty mode and what they are balancing it around between those 2 things they would change their animations and make them more confusing so you wouldn't know what he's gonna do precisely, like for example, a dragon. instead of just opening his mouth and breathing fire on you, he would pretend to be going to do that but then get you with a tail rake, then proceed with that breathing (tactics)

Basically what i think would be the best solution for this would be like 5 or 6 presets of animations for each npc and monster based on their skills and level and your difficulty setting. This would not eat up a lot of hard drive space (and besides who gives a damn about that hard drive space) but this would be a lot of detail work and something to think about for the bethesda animations squad i think they could pull it off. i'd like to see something like this, make the characters and monsters unique and different from one another, just like 2 hands 2 options, 2 monsters 2 different AI's and possibly animations and tactics and difficulty (could even think of teaming up and not charging you head on but using tactics on you and try to kill you the smart way depending on how smart the creature is, a wolf would do that right? wolves are pack hunters, they never travel alone.)

Edit: the hard part about this idea of mine is that it would have to be a part of the game engine that the same creature doesn't have the 100% same AI or Animation set. otherwise there'll be a lot of.. hours of creation kit fun

Dude, he JUST explained that he doesn't care about animations. The dragon headbutting etc. are JUST animations

He wants things like an enemy grabbing you or knocking you down, not just "hit...-10hp"

Yeah I want to be knocked around by Dragons and Mammoths and other large powerful creatures, it only makes sense. Would be nice if higher strength would also have an effect on whether your knocked completely senseless or just a little rattled.

Another problem is that the different effects you mention make much more sense in a game with hit locations, the Mirelurk Kings in FO3 crippling your head being a good example. There has been no mention of this, except wishful thinking, so probably safe to assume not in.
However, not tied to animations, the fact that shock spells damage enemy magicka is a hint that different attacks do have different effects, as well as the bleeding damage from axes perk. If enemies use these, you will notice the effects on your character.

knocking around is already in the trailer... twice, one minor and one complete knockdown by that dragon

You do realize that was scripted, right? I mean, it was using in game graphics and physics but we have little evidence to suggest that everything in the dragon fight is game play you can reproduce. In fact, with the general history of gaming and advertising tactics in plain sight, I'd say that at least 80% certainty the dragon fight has very little correlation to the actual game play experience.

I'm hoping there will be more combat animations but I was really dissapointed with Oblivion. I also understand that with such a big game, there isn't a clear focus on making one aspect of the game amazing its kinda like there's more options but everything is less polished. Like there's going to be improvements but what with creating a brand new game world, quests, storyline, new character models and prop models, scripting AI schedule and making a new stealth system, combat system, ranged combat system and magic system they might not be able focus on making these touches that help immersion.