Okay, so we've all seen the new trailer featuring in-game footage. It looks awesome. Fighting dragons, seeing new cities as big as (or bigger) than the Imperial City, combating monsters 3x our size, etc. There's a lot of hype about this game but most of it looks promising; I'd like to mention one potential mechanic to the game that could be it's downfall.
For those of us who have played the Fable series, Ninja Gaiden, Fallout 3, etc. we know that animations can get boring.
Let's look back at the trailer where the player is fighting the dragon. The video at IGN where they go over just about everything you can go over within the trailer, one of the things they highlight is the dragon combat (around 6-7 minutes in). They say "you can actually go toe-to-toe" with a dragon, complimenting the new ideas where for example if you slash the dragon head then it actually reacts. Let's be honest, ask yourselves, is this really going to happen?
Are we going to be able to be in first person mode slashing the dragon's head and then seeing it react by staggering?
If so, then this post is pointless. However, all the dragon vs player footage I've seen has been 3rd person which connotates that fighting dragons, like how most boss fights are done, is going to be the routine "hit this button, in this series, then watch as your character does all of this sweet animation for you and you are powerless to even move him"
If this is the case, that will svck the life out of Skyrim more so than the exploited "back-up quickly and shoot 100 arrows at your arena combatant, they'll go down eventually"
In IGN's article about Skyrim's combat system, Todd Howard explains how they want the combat system in Skyrim to be less repetitive and more hands-on.
Implementing the same uncontrollable animations against certain foes will do the opposite. Finishing moves may look nice, but they take the "hands-on" sense completely out of the equation. I don't want to press a button if "x and y are met than do z" such as "you are stealthed and behind your opponent, now you can instantly kill them by slashing their throat." It takes the combat out of combat. You are no longer predicting your enemies move and adjusting your character accordingly, you are just trying to get a certain animation set up.
Combo moves are fine, very good actually, but only if they are first person.
All I'm saying is that from the looks of it, this game will be fun, but the combat system may be just another "hit this button and watch your character do the rest." Watching a kill animation is entertaining the first time, but even watching 3 different animations over the course of get's old quick.

Pete said that Dragon battles will happen dynamically, and play out much in the same way as shown in the trailer.

Oh my god, are you nuts? They have revamped it entirely! The one clip of the axe hitting the skeleton. By god that is a chunky fufilling hit! I could watch the 1 sec portion over and over. I think combat will be incredible.

And if you don't want to insta-kill an oponant from behind as a stealth character... don't play a stealth character? That's like if you said, I HATE MAGIC! then played a mage...

Haha, agreed. Do you think the head came off completely or did it just bend back?

Hmmm. I think it just bent back cause it looks like the axe got STUCK in it. :drool:

Sneaking behind someone and killing them doesn't take to many animations, in oblivion you just swung a dagger. Now your actually going to kill them in a way that makes sense??

yes becuase Havok does that not bethesda, they just put it into the game, and it has already been shown to work, I dont see why it would take extra processing speed. So yeh I guess this thread is kinda pointless

Yeah, Havok Behavior is the reason combat will be dynamic. So it's not like Bethesda had to create thousands of animations per enemy. Havok Behavior takes care of that.

his head actually bends to the right, and the axe gets stuck in his chest, not head


gonna wait until the game comes out k? because the player gets flurried by a dual weilding enemy and doesnt stagger dynamically like the trailer shows. remember, trailers are for hype. and not intrinsicly representative of the game such as watching from the Dragons POV flying.

I agree with what your saying in regards to general combat. The combat will definitely be improved by adding a greater feel of weight, which was evident in the trailer, but it's also important to feel like you are controlling each strike, and I don't think Bethesda would turn combat into anything like the dreaded "Press X Not To Die" cutscene style scenarios that plague many games. Especially while playing in first person, it's important for your button presses to be more directly connected to the onscreen action. I do think that in the case of stealth attacks, the animations will be a good thing though. As for stealth insta-kills "taking the combat out of combat" I believe that's the point of stealth, to kill someone without really fighting them in the common sense, so I see no issue here. This can really only be an improvement; I found it quite obnoxious in Oblivion when I could sneak up on a sleeping character, but killing them required a charged hit of my flame enchanted daedric sword because the more sensible iron dagger would barely even make a dent in my target's health.

Entirely possible I think. I'm very wary about the whole concept of finishing moves and their potential repetitiveness.

One example from the trailer was when a guy was grabbed by the PC and stabbed in the stomach. I think this may be an example of a finishing move. I cannot support this sort of thing. I mean, I enjoyed Ninja Gaiden II on the Xbox 360. Go ahead, say what you want, but that game had tight controls, great hack and slash, and dizzying combos. It's also unforgivingly difficult. It's allowed to have special kill animations (even though they do get excessive when you can spam a bunch of them in a row). The thing is, I actually like to play my games. I don't want them to play themselves.

Sir, finishing animations and combat enhancements are one of most promising and amazing features (at least mechanics wisely) for me, and developer as experienced as Beth seems to know what they're doing. And after seeing that trailer, it looks like it's gonna live up to my every expectation. You'll still have to do the dirty part yourself, only that instead of scratching someone's calf and insta-turning them into an ragdoll (despise size, mass or even good reason), we'll be ending fights slightly more brutally and realistically, basing on weapon that we're using, our opponent, and (hopefully) our skill, attributes or such.

Are you sure you have nothing else to complain about? After all, there will be no spears

They appear to last no more than two seconds, and they don't happen with every kill.

It's not like it takes five minutes to plunge an axe into someone's skull or to impale a svcker through the chest with a sword.

The kills we've seen or quick, efficient, and above all brutal.

It's not like you just walk up to an enemy and do a finishing move. You fight them like you'd normally do. That last boring swing of your sword before the enemy dies has been replaced by an awesome finishing move.

Maybe but I will remain wary until I get my hands on the game or see several fights in video.

Wary of what? That killing people will actually look the way it should?

Wary that it will be boring/cheesy and something more akin to a Bioware cutscene than an extension of the actual combat.

I'm kind of worried too, but there's something that worries me more. Part of the gameplay showed a skeleton with a pretty decrepit looking sword and helmet. I'm worried that you won't be able to pick up all the items that an enemy has on them. I wouldn't really want to wear crappy skeleton armor, but it's always a little emersion breaking when an enemy has something right in front of you that you can't interact with.

yeh but there is also another system of Havok that allows skeletons to react to attacks

:violin: More doom and gloom :shakehead:

Each weapon type as a finishing moves,each weapon type won't just have one finishing move.
1: Each weapon,will have different finishing moves..example..dagger will have a few different moves,same as other weapons...now add that up,thats alot.
2: Each weapon has a different move to different creatures...again add that up....alot.
3: The position of the enemy and you effects finishers too = more variation....add that up...again alot.
4: Add all these together...and what does it add up to?....alot of variation....end of !

Wow, I had not thought of that, and now I'm worried. Thanks a lot!
I remember in Oblivion how much it bothered me when a few little items were unavailable to the players, such as Palace Guard Armor which could not be taken from dead guards.

Will spells have finishers?

Yes. That does sound awesome for the first few times you see it. Then it quickly gets to be just as boring and mundane as a swing of a sword, except that it takes a lot longer, and is unskippable. I mean Fallout: New Vegas added the whole slow-time enemy-cam thingy to combat, but I was fully allowed to disable that in a menu. And I did, because it's tedious.