Have you tried it?

Not that exact scenario, but I have fought high level enemies while I had low level skills and it played out how I described. Morrowind: Got my ass kicked. Oblivion: Kept using health potions and blocking. Ended up killing 'em. (And this has happened multiple times)

Health potions with Morrowind? In either game it's fully possible to kill anything with enough health potions. Until there are at least three controlled tests under as similar as possible conditions for both battles, it is not something I can accept as a fact.

Does it really matter? Point is, I feel that OB is a lot more player-skill based than Morrowind for the reason I said above. (Reflexes matter more than skill) You don't. Not much more to say, really. :shrug:

What are these reflexes, though, blocking?

I would call them both an action-rpg, not an rpg and an action game. Part of that comes from "hardcoe" rpg fans being a very, very bitter lot. While the targets are not always deserving, the bitterness is warranted, which makes it a difficult argument to cool down. I would say that the non-combat factors of Morrowind and Oblivion are rather flimsy, but that flimsy implementation is still better and stronger than most other supposed rpg's on the market (although the definitions of the genre really are vague and awful). Dragon Age: Origins, for example. I never see it called an action-rpg, just an rpg, yet it's more combat-heavy than the TES games. Non-combat elements are barely there. Sadly, "true" rpg's simply have a weak grip on the market, so those features don't get much emphasis. Rpg fans and their games were once the darlings of the medium, with incredibly expansive pen and paper games and videogames that worked hard to duplicate that experience, because they were able to focus on that niche. That was years ago. Now those fans are pissed off by years of being ignored and having to settle for "action games with rpg elements" and the like. TES has stronger elements than other games available so they cling to the series desperately, and when one game from the previous does something to weaken those elements, such as fewer skills, they go berserk like long-abused dogs in response to a finger coming in to jab them one more time.

I wouldn't put them in separate genres, but I do see a difference. Not so much a greater emphasis on action, but a lack of effort to stand up those faltering rpg elements. There are fewer skills, and mini-games that reduce the value of several others...which may draw extra nervousness considering that skills lost in the past were largely "not valuable." Combat does not require more player skill, but does involve less character skill. However, this difference seems larger than it is partly because of that same bad scaling feature. If you a warrior character based on the skill, raising it will increase your level, resulting in tougher and better-equipped enemies. In order to feel like your increasing skill is giving you an advantage you have to raise it as a minor skill, which is not good. Plus, if I understand the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:The_Complete_Damage_Formula right (which I probably don't, I hate you math), the quality of your weapon has a larger impact than your skill with it. You're likely to find better items faster than your skill increases, especially if it's a major skill that's also increasing your level, further dampening the benefit.

Overall I don't consider there to be a large difference between the two games as far as how "RPGable" they are, but do think that in the difference that is there, Oblivion moves farther away from it. That's all it takes to make a lot of people see red.

Oblivon pretty much REVOLVES around combat, its no doubt that it is going to be better than Morrowinds combat system.


if we could somehow combine both... and make a hybrid..... moroblivion... thatd be great

That's more of an opinion. I personally prefer Morrowind's combat system, because I felt it was more character skill based, though others may disagree.

We can. We can have a system in which character skill determines both chance to hit and damage dealt, but to lesser degrees for both, since both are there. It could also keep Oblivion's animations and blocking ability, but add a skill-based chance to completely fail at blocking and add enemy dodging animations. It could work, couldn't it?

Dude, brilliant ideas! It combines what's good about each system perfectly. ^_^

There was something else that I couldn't help but wonder. Some people hate the lack of dodging animations for our enemies, but what if, instead of putting in possibly awkward dodging animations, enemies just blocked when they are supposedly dodging? Is it more difficult than it sounds? I'm no modder, so I don't know.

I'd be easier to just have them block to represent dodging (Or do like they did in Morrowind: Standing still while dodging ) but I think we can all agree that it'd be cooler to actually see the dodge, albeit I'm pretty sure it'd be harder to implement. (Though Deadly Reflex handled dodging awesomely. IDK how hard it was for them to put in though.)

If they stand still, couldn't they also just do what Daggerfall did(you fail to damage your opponent and you hear a metal clashing sound, similar to what I would expect from a sword scraping across armor)?

Yeah, but in Morrowind, they were supposed to actually be dodging, like in Oblivion's Deadly Reflexes, where the NPCs duck and whatnot.

:shrug: Daggerfall has a dodging skill.

True...Really, when I think about it, each game's combat was really fun...But no game really had the concepts visualized on screen very well. Ah well, they're fun and that's all that matters, dammit!

Well, this is just a guess, but the PC in Daggerfall was treated very differently from NPCs while the PCs of Morrowind and Oblivion were treated much more like NPCs by the game. Is that an accurate guess, seeing as how the PCs of Morrowind and Oblivion actually have bodies that resemble those of other in the gameworld while Daggerfall doesn't?

As for the tone I'm getting, trying to move away from all hostility, eh? I'm not in attack mode. One more argument just got crossed off my list of arguments to get into in life(I have many).

Sort of, but not really. I'm not really in the mood for debating. It's nice to actually sit down and have a conversation. ^_^

...at 3:30 in the morning. This is the time of day when I'm too lazy to play video games, so I talk about them instead.

Exactly. Same here. :foodndrink:

Fellow summer vacationer with time and nothing to do?

Yup.

Lawn Mowing starts at the crack of 2 PM today.

Back to fighting(topic), does Fallout 3's melee combat work pretty much the same way Oblivion's does?

A simple across-the-board hit/miss formula like Morrowind used doesn't work completely, even if they had animations, since it doesn't take into account enemy types. Neither does Oblivion's nothing-fails system capture anything well, because combat is not that "ordered". A mudcrab, for example, is nearly immobile. It shouldn't be "dodging" at all. The game needs to separately take into account blocking, dodging, and missing as the entirely different things they are.

Proper animations could also make enemies "feel" different when they're doing the same thing. A dodging humanoid might lean backwards quickly to dodge a slash, while a storm atronach briefly separates the spinning rocks in its body without moving back, causing your weapon to just pass through it. Likewise, giving unique flavors to these things would make the experience much more varied, going further toward different creatures actually feeling like a different encounter, instead of the same thing with higher stats. An armed enemy might move its shield around to block your attacks, but if you're quick, you can get past and score hits even when it's trying to block. A mudcrab might retreat into its shell and be unable to attack, but also have all attacks from any angle regarded as blocked. A dangerous monster with extremely hard scales may not carry a shield and attack you unhindered, yet all attacks are considered blocked against its hard armor, greatly reducing their effect and causing a degree of bounce-back (instead of getting a "soft" hit that just does less damage against high defense, as in older systems). A warrior may struggle to pierce its hide with stronger weapons, while an archer could try for a fatal shot to the eyes to stand on the corpse for an I ROCK screenshot.

Flying enemies, on the other hand, would probably have high dodging ability but poor blocking, since a blocked attack would still throw off its balance and probably send it to the ground. Lighter weapons that bounce useless against a shield are suddenly more useful against the fast target. A heavily armored warrior with limited magical ability might not have anything that can help in combat against another armored opponent, but a simple flash of light to blind a swooping target and briefly remove its dodging skill might be enough to crush it with a heavy attack it has no ability to block. That archer who could target weak spots before is suddenly in trouble with a swift enemy weaving back and forth and dodging those arrows, when the warrior could simply bash the enemy with his shield mid-pounce once it's close.

Missing may not be a normal issue for a trained warrior, but could be an easy deterrent for people picking up a weapon at low skill and trying to use it normally. Perhaps at skill level 10 and under, after which the equation doesn't include natural missing. They would also be an effective way of hitting the player with those effects they can use but are unavailable to enemies. Morale may be useless spells to cast at the player character, but what if the PC could be terrified by a spell or fearsome enemy and start shaking, causing misses and spell failures that worsen the closer they are to the caster? But, I'm rambling again so I'll stop here. I honestly can't remember why I started on this post or what my point was supposed to be.

I think so, not sure.

@Rhekarid - Very nice post! I totally agree!