So I'll start by admitting that I have no idea how encounters are going to take place in skyrim, but I can point out some of the things that annoyed me most about Oblivion.

First, I hated that the battle music started whenever an enemy detected you. To me, that's the wrong cue. It telegraphs to the player that they are in a battle situation and it usually does it well before the player has even figured out they are under attack. I don't need an early warning system like this, it takes away some of the fun of being ambushed or surprised.
Rather, I think the battle music should cue when you are actually attacked. That way the attack comes out of nowhere and you can be caught completely off guard. Every now and then I am still surprised by an attacker, but I do wish it happened more often.

Second, chasers follow you too long. I'm not complaining about humans or animals like wolves that can run quickly, but mudcrabs here. Mudcrabs used to follow my character FOREVER. There was no hope of them catching up to me, and I had to listen that that annoying battle music the whole time. I would rather listen to the lovely woodsy music for two reasons:
I never got attacked by the mudcrab, so the battle music shouldn't be playing at all, AND, it certainly shouldn't keep playing for half an hour after I run off.

So that's my comment. Please let the battle music cue to actual combat so that we don't get so much of a telepathic heads-up about enemies nearby, and please cut the chase shorter when the enemy has no reasonable chance to catch you.

Well in Skyrim, most animals (and giants) will not attack you on sight, so you'll hear the battle music less often at least.

But I do agree on how battle music should start once you hit first/get hit.

So turn the music off, problem solved. I really don't see the point in playing music in these games in the first place, completely immersion breaking.



You're kidding right, running away from a Mudcrab? How much of a coward are you? Unless you're grossly outmatched, which never really happened in Oblivion at any rate, you should just turn around and fight.

^Running away from a mudcrab, thats funny. But anyways I liked the battle music in Oblivion, it let me get ready for a fight, but I guess I wouldnt have a problem with it if it was removed in Skyrim.

Sometimes a rat would be attacking me, so the music would cue, and I'd look around and not see it. So I'd keep running along and the music wouldn't stop. Those rats have chased me for spans of twenty minutes before I got tired of the music and hunted down whatever was following me.

I think it'd be cool if there was a perk or something that caused the music to cue when an enemy saw you. Yeah, it was kind of stupid that it happened every time in Oblivion, but if it didn't happen every time, it would be a cool way of conveying the idea that your character can sense a presence, or heard a noise in the distance or something.

No, I like the woodsy stroll music that plays when you are not in a fight. My frustration stems when the music switches because not only do I get the heads-up about a battle, but it happens entirely too much as I wander about the wilderness and get spotted by every random spawn.


I'm not fleeing from it, I'm just running generally while it sees me from who-knows-where and cues the battle music. Then it won't quit because the crab never does catch up to me or land a hit. I don't have the patience or care to go hunt it down.

I'm apologize that my post was so vague that you misunderstood so much of it.