I really love the melee combat in Oblivion, which is far more exciting than in the previous games, however there is one thing that I would love to see added; finisher and combo moves. By this, I mean special, animated moves which allow you to slay your opponent (Perhaps only when they are at very low health) and give the combat a little more flare and excitement. These moves could be purchased from melee trainers in places such as the fighters guilds and assigned in a similar way that spells are. Different ones could be used depending on your skill level (So mechanically they operate much like spells) with the most powerful ones needing the highest level of skill.

The core idea is that these moves not only give you a combat advantage but that they also offer some cool animations to break combat up a little more and give melee based characters a little more variety in their attacks than just slugging away. It would seem to allow for far more visceral looking combat while still maintaining the simplicity of the games system so as not to disadvantage players who are less skilled at action-games.

If anyone has any thoughts it would be really interesting to hear them

Kind Regards

James

I thought it was the purpose of the "power attacks" ?

I am not too fond of Oblivion's power attacks, so I wouldn't mind if the perks for combat skills were "more special" moves.
When you become competent enough you can go to a master at arms who will teach you a special move (perks) instead of raising your skill by 1%. There should be many different perks (for example, "power attacks", "disarming attacks", "attacks destined to make the opponent fall over" and you can choose only one per level of competence (apprentice, journeyman, ...)

I wrote something like that in an old thread about Fallout 3 perks in Oblivion. I suggested Oblivion's perks should be kept, but they should be multiple (the player should decide what perk he is going to have so that not all characters grow the same way) to allow the player to specialize himself. For combat skills, it means special moves or weapon specialization (for example, a longsword perk raising your blade skill when you use a longsword)

better animations would fix the fighting id say. my prob with OB combat is tht it changed the magic system from wht Mw had. so i dont know if it would work to be able to fail at magic, and hit every time in melee fighting. maybe to have a balance it would be u hit a guy 50+ times with a hammer, and hit a guy with some magic ball of whtever 5 times. anyway, i dont know how but if they could magically get it somewhere in the middle id be happy. sry if tht didnt make sense or didnt even answer the question.
on topic though, being able to choose from diff. special move options as your char. upgraded would be pretty nice.

I think the oblivion core combat system is great, however it does need better animations, and the finisher moves would be great if done right. Some things that need to be implemented still are better dodging abilities and shield bash, but other than those gripes I think oblivion has had the best melee combat system I have ever seen.

Kick to the chest and then head slice with sword :rock:

I found that having to hold the button down for like 2 seconds was way too long in a fight. then to perform any of the special power attacks you had to hold the arrow keys, so my character would be 10 feet away by the time he swung his weapon, it makes power attacks completely useless.

I would rather my character moved the sword according to how I move the mouse, so that I can make combos myself, and not just a few set positions.

If you want a "hack and slash" game, why are you playing a RPG? Finishing moves are a "first person" player skill mechanism, not something that works well in a RPG where the character's skill should make some difference. There are dozens of FPS type games already, why corrupt nearly the only decent RPG left?

Definitely all for it.




I regard those more as combo rather than finishing moves. I think finishing moves would be a fantastic addition to the combat system, and bring warriors more on par with mages.

This is so hilarious. I just posted somewhere else about finisher moves. In the monster ideas #2. I would like to see finisher moves. That would be AWESOME! Actually, the idea spawned from a game I'm playing right now, The Force Unleashed. The finisher scenes for the bosses are WICKED!

I think that they should add a move you can do when you paralyse an enemie (like when you use a power attack or a spell) to finish it before it came back on its feet. Like a fatal blow to the head or a sword going through the body something like that.

Wow I would love to see finisher moves in TES V. But there would have to be a lot of them and be able to combine them to make entirely new ones like in Assassins creed.

I like it that they just focus on making other things better rather then just adding fancy killing move.

Exactly, and in doing that Bethesda would have to master their animations, which while we all love Bethesda, we know that isn't one of their strong points.

Hmmm, sounds kind of like the way World of Warcraft does its special moves for warriors. Pay a trainer for moves and as you gain levels you get access to more powerful moves. A good idea I think.

shouldnt this be in the http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1044483?

Fair question. But as someone else pointed out in another thread, devs are more likely to go further into action type games and away from hardcoe RP. That said, I would rather see them providing something like finisher moves, which can still be somehow related to skills and abilities, than letting them go discover a new way of svcking like they did with power attacks. Nobody asked for them, but they did them anyway 'cause they though it will go well with Oblivion's combat system, they failed utterly. If it is not broken - don't fix it, but if you have to, go with "the devil you know" and don't try to be smart. That may not be a way to develop groundbreaking new style of gameplay, but it's safe and gives you some view over what new stuff might work and what might not, without actually testing it on unsuspecting gamers.

I disagree that finishing moves are player skill related, they are simply an animation that runs when you deal the final blow, I know you're probably thinking of that mortal combat fatality stuff, where you have to press a complex button combination, but I would hate that too, I would rather have finishing moves depend on where the death blow strikes, or maybe part of a critical hit?

I could see it work well in an RPG.


Personally, I want a system where, if the hit that takes out the last health in the health bar, is not a strike to the torso or head, then I would rather have the enemy fall to the ground and scream in pain, or some other neutralizing state, which doesn't involve immediate death, then you can execute them, and depending on the weapon, area of attack, and enemy type, you get a different finishing move.

Of course there should also be some kind of "finishing move" that you don't have to take them down first to achieve, an example of something like that could be if you kill someone with a power attack, like if you kill someone with a hard forward thrust, then you actually run them through.

Screw genres, the game would be more exciting with a good, dynamic action game-oriented combat system. It should be a flexible system that utilises the strengths of both player and character skill. I'm not overly interested in having finisher moves or pre-made combo moves in the game. I'd like specific strike types with more focus on the ability to move and twist in combat to effectively fight multiple enemies at once, to use the terrain strategically (and more than just 'stand on a rock and shoot fireballs) and making fights that end with only one successful strike atually exciting.