I can see it becoming repetitive.

1st time: Oh, awesome! Slo-mo badassery!
2nd time: I've seen this one before.
3rd time: Uh-huh.
...
500th time: ...

Would finishing moves become repetitive at some points? Maybe, but they're still more interesting than enemies slumping over like a bag of potatoes...

What makes my head hurt though, is why so many people jump to the conclusion that this will make the game a mindless action game? Did VATS ruin Fallout 3? The cinematic camera in New Vegas made it more shallow?

Age of Conan has made me extrememly leery of any automated finishing system. While they may be cool and all, chances are while you're performing your kickass move, you're also getting flanked by every other mob and put way out of position for a good offense/defense.

Hopefully they take this into account, either with some time stoppage or post-finisher buffs.

I know, I know. That post was from reading the thread but ignoring the OP. I've edited it now.

But it's going to do something that my character can't do normally. I can't spend 10 minutes of real time perfecting my timing of the controls of the the forward knife stomach lunge finishing move, because I as the player can't control that. The thing is - the kill cam/slow motion finishing move looks like it is essentially going to be a terrible feature, because I can't control it myself, but I have to rely on the game to decide to do it for me.

The other peeve I have is that it looks like my character will spend 10 minutes doing the same repetitive sword slash movement at a bandit leader, without any contact with the sword attacking him, and then out of nowhere kick him in the balls, whack the pommel of the sword on the small of his back as he lurches over, reverse his grip on the sword in a beautiful flourish and drive the sword straight through the bandits heart and deep into the ground...

So why the heck did I have to endure 10 minutes of dull combat where the animations weren't fluid at all, just to witness a finishing move that is, in the game world, next to impossible, because my character can only do it if there is an enemy to kill.

Why the heck didn't my character start the fight by doing that?



Jedi Knight Two Jedi Outcast. and I never played the prequel or sequel, so I can't comment on how those are.




Then implement more interesting death animations - enemies reacting to their fatal wound before collapsing. The enemy still needs to fall to the ground in some way, so they'll still slump over like a bag of potatoes, finishing move or not.

Oh you mean how you can set when that happens, like at the "last enemy".

We don't know how often they will happen, but it seems they only happen at the end of the whole battle, when you defeat the last enemy from the group.
It mainly shows in the fighting with the wolves, where he kills 2 wolves normally, and the finishing move kicks in on the last one.


Wouldn't those get repetitive as well?

I remember games before ragdolls, I could count in what ways the enemies would die...

Sounds awful, definitely would prefer it be optional.

Depends. I never got tired of peppering a poor Russian soldier kneeling down while holding his hands on his wiener in GoldenEye 64.

I like the FONV kill cam I wouldn't mind if this was implemented, as long as it can be turned off. It could get a little cheesy after too many hours. And I plan on playing Skyrim for many hours .

i think they'll get this right. If you played Fallout: New Vegas (im not sure if this is in fallout 3), then you know what happens when you get a lethal shot. The camera follows the bullet in slow motion until it hits the opponent and the person dies. These are random as well and not very often, so its not that big of a deal. AND they had options as to how you would like to see this procedure. i voted yes for all of them.

Its a lame gimmick they added to appeal to kids and teenagers that like flashy fighting skills.
Slow-Motion is also a gimmick, keep it in the Matrix, not in TES.

As far as im concerned it doesnt add anything to the story, therefore it is unnecessary.

Considering the finishers for this game were largely based off the Deadly Reflex mod for Oblivion, which did everything they showed almost word-for-word alike (finishers were automatic, it occasionally pulled you into third person to show them, and slowed time down for certain finishers), I have no problem with this.

One thing we do not know yet is if it will be possible to perform an instant-kill coup-de-grace on your target if you manage to knock him down. Hopefully you will, but other than that, I have no issue with the implementation of finishers in this game, just as I had no problem with the VATS implementation in Fallout 3.

Calm down, take a damn breath, and do this:

KINDLY and POLITELY ask for these mechanics and some of their features to be OPTIONAL. Give the player the ability to decide how the game works, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_tOiLB_Ko&feature=related

I though Todd stated a while ago that finishing moves were activated by doing a power attack. But if this is wrong then yes I would like it to be optional.

You've obviously never played the game. No, I don't mean that at all. You can set it from every time you kill ANY enemy to never. The cinematic animation is in no way different from what the player can pull off without it. It put you into a slow motion mode where the camera would swing right around you, but you still had full control of your character and could, for example, cut one enemy in half with your lightsaber and then, while still in slow motion, do a backward flip over another and cut their head off. Not only that, but the melee combat was actually fluid and the killing animation was finely interwoven with the rest of the fight.

Of course. but whatever you do, the death will get repetitive. You can count the ways in which enemies will die in Skyrim. Even in JK2JO the killcam would have become annoying if it was not for the g_saberREalisticCombat=1 cheat and the force powers.

II hope you can toggle that stuff on and off. I personally don't care for "cinematic" as much as I care for "good game flow" - I hate having control over my character taken away to watch an animation.

The only game where I ever liked finishing moves was The Witcher 1/2, but that's 3rd person all the time, and most importantly, Geralt is an efficient killer whos coolness comes from his utter disregard for style, so watching the finishing moves in the Witcher feels real and not like they are just trying to show off all the things they couldn't find a way to let the player do.

I really hate the forced third-person finishing moves. It would make me feel like I am playing some stupid QTE. When I saw the dragon finishing move in the trailer I kept expecting to see a 'TAP A TAP A' animation. :shakehead:

I like all of these features, but they must be optional
i remember disabling "kill-cam" in Fallout NV after a while, it was cool but it started annoying me after a while

I remember hating the inclusion of similar features in the upcoming deus ex human revolution (i understand it's a different kind of game), and judging from my limited time with it, the game is surprisingly playable with these features on. In fact, preferred. So besides the disappointing graphics of skyrim, I'll play with whatever they give me. So long as they never gimp or reduce, the size of the world, the size of the guilds, the size of anything. I want elder scrolls games to refine, but never outright remove the content and depth.

That would be the biggest crime. And the graphics, the graphics.... sigh.... the graphics....

Please someone start working on porting tessellation into dx11 capable engines. Skyrims visuals make young children cry tears of blood.

Automatic finishing moves? Fine.
Forcing the player into third-person? No. I like to see through my characters eyes, or get as close to it as I can.
Slow-motion finishing moves? NO. I can barely stand seeing people getting stabbed in the gut as it is, so seeing it in slow-motion would likely make me throw up. I'm serious, that kind of stuff just plain freaks me out, I can't stand it.
I voted for all of it to be optional and toggleable so I wouldn't have to see people get stabbed in the stomach(or anywhere else, but mostly the stomach) at all.

100% agree! Please make this optional Bethesda. This is one of the things that destroyed my interest in the Deus Ex game. They have this great 1st person immersive experience, and then when you stealthily approach an enemy, you see a giant "press A now!" flash on the screen. After pressing A, you completely lose all control and the camera pans way out to show you punchisizing the enemy in super slow mo. Really? Was that necessary? All just to "look cool"?

I know designers think the kids will eat this sh!t up, but at least make it toggle-able. Two things I hate in my games, lack of control/interaction, and breaking immersion. This pretty much does both. They might as well have QTE's for the dragon battles, because then they could make them look AWESOME!! Like Warnek said, I really expected to be tapping a button during the finishing move on the dragon. It looked like something out of God of War (not a good thing)...

i dont know man, im devided on this one, tes has been needing this in my opinion, i would just like the 3rd person thing to NOT happen...but its not so bad when i think about how awesome some of those finishers are....i want a prompt. something that makes a finishing move SPECIAL...and DIFFICULT. i dont want it to happen every kill....or maybe i do. it makes the death feel more real, instead of the randomness of the ragdoll's.
if anything bothers me about the finishing animations is that it doesn't apply to arrows..or maybe its just what we have seen. if there were death animations for EVERY kill i would be happy, and not care at all about the execution of the finisher, weather i had controll or not wouldnt matter then, just for gods sake no more ragdoll deaths.

Not controlled by me - fine. I mean, how could I possibly control it? *My next move is going to be a finishing one* - yeah right
Forced 3rd person - I'm gonna hate it. Probably even more so than when mounting a horse or sitting down in Oblivion.
I'm also okay with slow motion, however finishing moves have to be relatively rare, not something you see for each fight.
Doesn't FO3/FONV allow us to turn it off? Can't imagine they will want to force it upon us. I'll probably leave it on for the ten first ones and then just turn it off, especially if it switches my view.

i just want it to be optional i dont want to be forced to do a finisher

I don't mind the finishers being automatic: that means I'll always have one to look forward to, without having to bother myself with wrestling to achieve that one. Forced third person... eh, I don't care for the sound of it; however, I don't have the game yet, so it might very well look nice. Slow-motion is alright by me; that means I can enjoy my favorite finishing move more often.

I don't like it when the game takes control of my character for any reason, and I hope any such finishing cinematics in Skyrim will be optional. If they aren't, I will implore the modding community to make dispensing with them a priority. However, given that we were able to turn off the Fallout kill cam I'm inclined to believe we will be able to do the same in Skyrim.