One interesting topic that I don't believe has been talked about is how exactly finishing moves will work. From what the magazine has told us thus far, we know this:

*Page 50 in the Skyrim GI shows an assassin character impaling an unfortunate dark elf with a dagger. This could very well be our first screen shot of a finishing move in action.*

- One can deduce from the reading that finishing moves are purely a melee combat mechanic. However, it's more than possible they will be for other combat disciplines as well.

- Finishing moves appear to activate as one has defeated an opponent.

- Finishing moves will be different depending on the weapons one uses and the opponent they are encountering.

Now with the information about finishing moves on the table, how exactly will they differ in terms of 1st and 3rd person?

Hopefully they will look great in both perspectives, but there is still plenty of speculation we can do on how we think finishing moves will look in both perspectives.

I personally think there will be pros and cons to seeing finishing moves in both perspectives. While being in 1st person, you may be fully immersed, and the camera may be turning various directions (similar to Mirror's Edge perhaps?), but you won't necessarily get the satisfaction of seeing the finishing move in all it's entirety. On the other hand, being in 3rd person will allow one to see the entire finishing move, but we don't know to what degree 3rd person has been overhauled, so it could potentially still be inferior to a 1st person perspective.

Feel free to pitch in your own opinions about finishing moves overall, and how you think they will work with the different perspectives in combat.

Current possibilities for finishing moves:

- Finishing moves could perhaps work only on the last enemy the player encounters ending combat.

- Enemy is dazed and player can manually activate the finishing move (similar to Mortal Kombat).

- Player does a quick and fast animation after defeating the opponent (similar to Age of Conan).

Well I would assume that it looks the same as regular combat. You either see it from behind or you get the more immersive feel but you don't see things as well.

seing previous games differences betwen 1st and 3th cameras, I would say that they will put a cool spinning animation in 3th and a slight displacement in 1st; but who knows.

I love finishing moves, I hope one can interrupt them though, because what if there's more than one enemy? You don't wanna be caught in a finishing move animation when you have a second enemy about to attack.

In one of the pics from the magazine you actually see what looks like a finishing move or a stealth kill.

You pose an interesting point. I'm currently under the impression the finishing move will just activate as you finish an opponent. But what if you are encountering multiple opponents? It will be interesting to see how Bethesda has addressed this issue since it would seem fairly common in the game.

@Daydark - Very good eye. That more than likely is a finishing move for an assassin-type character with the dagger. Would be interesting to see the two perspectives with the finishing move side to side.

The finnish will FINISH YOU!

Well if the finishing moves are either something you have to activate and not automatic (enemy go's into "dazed" state, ready to be finished), it will be fine, or if the finishing move animations are quick it will be fine as well, they can also make it so that you are invincible under an animation, but that not the greatest thing.

As long as they aren't slow motion, or "force" your 1st person view to go 3rd person view, I'm happy.

I'm hoping for something like... when the enemy is on the ground, you can make a finishing move by striking your weapon into him/her.

finishing moves hold zero interest for me. I would rather they make the game world believable and immersive, which would mean sorting the levelling problems from Oblivion.

I want a believable world more than anything else.

If I wanted finishing moves, I would buy a beat em up.

Definitely. Todd talks about wanting to change the pace of combat from Oblivion and really getting the player engaged. Hopefully that means finishing moves will be quick, impressive, and brutal.

Hopefully they wouldn't resort to such a thing as forcing a 3rd person view just to see the finishing move. I would love to see it animated from a 1st person perspective.

So right now the likeliest solutions is to have an enemy dazed or incapacitated before one can actually use the finishing move (similar to Mortal Kombat).

Or the other option is for the finishing move to be fast and short and not slow the pace of combat (similar to Assassin's Creed).

It could be that finishing moves will only activate after you kill the last enemy you are in combat with. Or perhaps you will have to manually perform them.

Well we already know for a fact this game will be using FO3's level scaling with some improvements more than likely.

As far as a believable world, this is TES, so I'm not worried.

Also, believe it or not, but a mechanic such as finishing moves will only bring more immersion and belief into this world we all want to enjoy and explore. Todd actually brought up a great point in his interview about how role playing games are starting to mix in all the different genres. With Skyrim, they want to take the experience further and make the player feel they have more control, and almost as if they were actually there in that world. Finishing moves will only add to that experience, and will ultimately make combat much more fluid and real.

Hopefully in first person the camera moves as your head would move. Not that hard to work out, is it?

I think it could be possible to have finishing moves for magic. After all, you could have different finishing moves for different spells. I want to see the target explode from lightning, charred to the bone or shatter from being frozen. That would be sweet. As for ranged combat, it could be possible but it would require multiple ranged weapons to make it effective.



Wow....really? Your going to say the entire world was unbelievable and you couldn't immerse yourself in the game because of level-scaling that was a bigger flaw for combat but was a minor flaw in the world. :facepalm:

Here's a proposition.

First and third person animations are the same. In 1st person, you view from a camera lodged just at the edge of the head, that is the only aspect of the body made invisible, and you can view the rest of the animation. The camera will be somewhat shake resistant though so you don't get it bouncing all over the place as you runa and jump and get hit. Therefore, when you do a finishing move in 1st person, it'll just be the 3rd person animation from a different perspective, and you will still have limited control of the head movement.

One thing they could do while you are playing in first person is to pan out to third person automatically so you can actually see the finishing move. Kinda like VATS in FO3 just in real time.

Like in Mirror's Edge, I hated it in Oblivion when your character is supposed to turn around and you just see the sword...

Perhaps. The only reason I stated it appears to be a melee mechanic only is because finishing moves are specifically and only mentioned in the melee combat section. It would definitely be nice to see what BGS could come up with in other combat disciplines.

First of all I hope Bethesda makes the first person similar to Mirror's edge. It always bothered me that I was essentially a floating pair of arms and eyes. :shrug:

As for finishers I wonder if we will have multiple ones per weapon not only depending on what you are facing but depending on where they are relative to you.
For instance, if I strike my killing blow with a iron longsword on a troll from the side and the "finisher" animation is running him through from the front (like in the GI article) will my character just warp/slide into place like in Dragon Age? Will the animation be different? Or will my character step into place realistically?
And will they be something you trigger? Will they happen at random? Or will they happen as you kill the last foe in a encounter as some have suggested.
I just want enough variation or a choice to not use them so they don't become a "oh yeah, this again" kind of thing.

Definitely agree with you there. Finishing moves have to have enough variety to keep us "wowed," but it also depends greatly on how Bethesda decides to execute them. Considering how interactive and free-form the combat system has always been in TES games, I'm hoping that the finishing move system will reflect that innovation. Especially in a 1st person perspective, if we had finishing move animations similar to Mirror's Edge, they would just be purely fantastic. Never would get old.

I was actually thinking about this, but finishing moves really aren't new to Bethesda. They were used extensively when using VATS in Fallout 3 and New Vegas (Obsidian). One of the only reasons I liked using VATS was for finishing moves, when the camera would zoom in on the side of the player's face, and then follow bullet/laser/etc. burst from the weapon and impact the NPC. I can definitely see Bethesda making full use of that with bows and arrows, and it would be interesting to see what they do with magic.

i hope they dont make you invincible if your doing finishing moves. this isnt assassins creed where you can get through the entire game just by doing one finishing move after another. if you want to do a finishing move to show off then some other npc should be able to come along and kill you.

as for how its done. at least for first person which is pretty much what i use i hope they took some cues from far cry 2 and from dark messiah.......so far those are the best first person animations i can recall. mirrors edge supposedly has great first person animations as well but i havent gotten around to playing it yet.

Mirror's Edge definitely takes the cake. Much better and more interactive than the other two. I personally think DICE was on to something with Mirror's Edge and first person-type games have something to learn from them.

If they are done like in Dark Messiah then it will be amazing from a First Person perspective, but there will have to be a full first-person body model to make it work properly.

if they make every finishing move a slow motion out of the body experience then I will not buy the game, I feel THAT strongly against it.

you want to see in 3d person fine use it and watch all you want, I want to see in 1st person good then don't FORCE ME out of it every time I want to do anything significant.