Disable the "finishing moves" : V - Skyrim

» Wed May 09, 2012 4:16 am

So...it happened once and that was too much for you to handle?

I guess you'd go absolutely insane if rain went through the walls or some textures were glitchy. Jeez.

» Tue May 08, 2012 10:20 pm

Good thing you can disable at least 3e person finishers, kudos to Beth!

» Tue May 08, 2012 6:19 pm

i luv em. ill never get tired of it.... EVER!

» Wed May 09, 2012 1:02 am

I despise features like that, too -- in fact, I've never cared for the melee aspect at all. Using magic or a bow is another option to consider.

» Tue May 08, 2012 5:34 pm

I can't help but picture the stun animation as the one in Mortal Kombat before you perform a Fatality.

Enemies already do that in Skyrim, Mess them up good and they kinda recoil differently than stagger, Im just saying make it an option where the player can initiate the finishers or not, or leave them auto matic
everyone wins

» Tue May 08, 2012 5:40 pm

I agree OP. I haven't even played the game and I know I'm going to hate them after the first half dozen times or so. That's about as long as they are entertaining before it just gets freaking annoying.

And why do so many of you get your panties in a twist when someone asks for toggle-able options? What the hell is wrong with OPTIONS? Their not asking for them to be remove completely just the OPTION to be disabled. Seems like a decent request to me seeing you could in Fallout.

P.S.

Well, apparently they can be turned off, problem solved.

» Wed May 09, 2012 3:46 am

I want to toggle Dragons.

» Tue May 08, 2012 6:50 pm

Id like it if it were a finishing move that I initiated. Having the character do it without my input is just lame.

» Tue May 08, 2012 7:28 pm

So, there I was in first person, fighting a guy with a sword. Playing Skyrim. I'm hitting him, he's hitting me - you know how it goes - when all of a sudden I swing and...

...the next thing I know I'm watching a movie of some elf stabbing some elf running this guy through with a sword.

Then, when I was allowed to play Skyrim again, I quit it and came here to start this thread.

Look, I understand you needed something pretty to throw in the trailers and ads, but "cinematic takedowns" are a disease and the complete antithesis of gaming. Gaming is about interactivity. Perspective-breaking scripted sequences that remove control over the player character are the opposite of that. Gaming is about control. These scripted takedowns remove that.

In short, having the player character - the guy on screen - do something the player - the human holding the mouse or controller - has no control over makes your game less of a game. I understand some may think it "looks" great - that's fine. There just needs to be an option to disable them. But in my mind, games are not about how they look - that's not interaction, that's simply observation - but about how they feel, how they play - that what a player character does on screen is a direct result of the player's own actions. When you have the player character do something the player did not instigate or have control over, you break the suspension of disbelief that gaming relies on: that the player IS the player character. Isn't that what RPGs are meant to be about?

There needs to be an option to turn it off. I looked forward to Skyrim as a game that maintained the tradition TES, of being an immersive sim where the player controlled as many aspects of the game as possible. And the the "cinematic takedowns" or "finishing moves" or "executions" or whatever quaint euphemism is currently being used to describe them simply make it less of a game and more of a movie.

And it's a sad, sad day when all gaming can aspire to is films.

I disagree with all of this. You do directly instigate the finishing moves, by making the attack that kills your opponent. The only thing different is the animation chosen for that particular attack. And you can't say that because the animation is different, you have no control: You don't have any control over the standard animations either. You can choose how and when to make the attacks, and finishers are simply a new animation on a power attack.

From a realism point of view... aren't you trying to kill someone with every attack you make? In that case, the "finisher" move is merely the default attack animation, and all others are partial failures to achieve that goal.

The finishing moves achieve a number of things: They give weight to at least your final attack - you know someone's dead after you run them through, or slice their head off. They also add greater "realism" by aligning the attacks: When you decapitate someone, you don't strike their hand or chest to send the head flying. And, they also let you know your target is dead, not merely knocked down/out (A frustrating problem I often had in Oblivion and Morrowind)

» Tue May 08, 2012 2:13 pm

» Tue May 08, 2012 8:34 pm

So you'd rather just hit them untill they fall over into a lifeless ragdoll state?

» Tue May 08, 2012 6:38 pm

Anyway, I do very highly agree.

this

and also, I understand how some people can enjoy them (who really doesn't like pretty looking thingies??) but i'd really like to be able to disable them in the options, you know, just a single click? So I can play most of the time without, and just put it when I want some real badass times killing things.

» Wed May 09, 2012 2:48 am

So, there I was in first person, fighting a guy with a sword. Playing Skyrim. I'm hitting him, he's hitting me - you know how it goes - when all of a sudden I swing and...

...the next thing I know I'm watching a movie of some elf stabbing some elf running this guy through with a sword.

Then, when I was allowed to play Skyrim again, I quit it and came here to start this thread.

Look, I understand you needed something pretty to throw in the trailers and ads, but "cinematic takedowns" are a disease and the complete antithesis of gaming. Gaming is about interactivity. Perspective-breaking scripted sequences that remove control over the player character are the opposite of that. Gaming is about control. These scripted takedowns remove that.

In short, having the player character - the guy on screen - do something the player - the human holding the mouse or controller - has no control over makes your game less of a game.

I understand some may think it "looks" great - that's fine. There just needs to be an option to disable them. But in my mind, games are not about how they look - that's not interaction, that's simply observation - but about how they feel, how they play - that what a player character does on screen is a direct result of the player's own actions. When you have the player character do something the player did not instigate or have control over, you break the suspension of disbelief that gaming relies on: that the player IS the player character. Isn't that what RPGs are meant to be about?

There needs to be an option to turn it off. I looked forward to Skyrim as a game that maintained the tradition TES, of being an immersive sim where the player controlled as many aspects of the game as possible. And the the "cinematic takedowns" or "finishing moves" or "executions" or whatever quaint euphemism is currently being used to describe them simply make it less of a game and more of a movie.

And it's a sad, sad day when all gaming can aspire to is films.

Play a mage and or a archer...Archers and Mages don't have those scripted kill deaths..

Personally im fine with them i look at em as the elder scrolls version of a critical hit instead of seeing the words CRITICAL HIT pop up u get to see a actual critical blow being delivered

But to be fair im gonna play a archer mage

LOL not because i have a problem with the kill scene thing [which i dont] but simply because i always create a archer mage

» Tue May 08, 2012 9:54 pm

Ah, it's good to be back on gamesas forums...forgot what it was like.

This thread really took off. Nice. Some replies even got deleted between my starting post this one. I'd love to reply, with quotes, to everyone, but then I realise I'd be wasting words on the people who really need replying to, as they failed to read most of my post.

Specifically, they missed the bit in my post that say turning off the cinematics should be an option. Granted, that was way towards the end, and most of those people who implied I was somehow "wrong" were of the "tl;dr" type. I did say it should be optional - because just because I would like something done some way doesn't make anyone else's opinion of it any less valid. At least with gameplay in games.

Option, people. I want you to be able to play the game just as you like it as much as I want to be able to play the game as I like it! Empathy! Social skills! I do also find it funny that the most inane and silliest reply also has the worst spelling and grammar...is there a correlation? But I digress.

No one's saying Bethesda should permanently remove the takedowns. They were an option in FNV - I'm wondering why they can't do the same. God, it's like that old "fast travel should be removed entirely!!111!!!" argument we had - no one's forcing you to do anything. Except unlike fast travel, the use of takedowns are outside of the player's control. Please remember that Skyrim is a single player game, and that you're not in competition with anyone. What one person does in their game has no effect on another's game.

As Malavok said: menu option. "Play takedown sequences? Y/N". Simple.

Though I do find it funny I outlined my reasons why I don't like them, and then Netherscourge made up a completely different just to suit his own argument. Well played. And Lextender, whose reply also seemed to highlight his own insecurities. (See, I can bury these jibes in this wall of text and know the tl;dr crowd'll never read 'em.) These people seem to think they're the kind of people whose opinions I should value, when what they've written suggest entirely the opposite.

Yes, I'm on PC, and I'm hoping for a mod for this, though I'm just worried that the takedowns are too deeply buried in the code to be excised neatly. Anyway, the CK hasn't been released yet, so here's hoping. I also tend to play archer characters, yes, though the archery in Skyrim is worthy of another thread (with the same results as this one, probably...) but I think maybe the takedowns represent some deeper change in the development philosophy of Bethesda, which is worrying.

I've been gaming a long time, and have the experience to know that any cinematic sequence in a game looks cool about the first two times for me; after that, it's just a hindrance that prevents me from playing the game. Like I said, my opinion. Which is why it should be an option - like I said in the OP.

Of course, if you value pure visual aesthetics over interactivity to the point where you feel you must insult those who have different thoughts on it, then I wonder why you're even on a gaming forum in the first place. Might wanna head over to Youtube or Vimeo instead. And burn all your games, while you're at it.

» Tue May 08, 2012 11:12 pm

why would Bethesda not have a disable button? its like their purposely trying to piss people off by not using common sense