First thing first; New Vegas was not made by Bethesda, only published by BSW - That means any changes in gameplay were made by the Obsidian team, not Bethesda.

Second, on Fallout 3 and New Vegas hand-to-hand was pretty much either up to par or overpowered compared to other methods.


You are forgetting the moves on Fallout 3 where you can paralyze anyone dead in their tracks for 5+ seconds, REPEATEDLY.
Then on New Vegas you had much the same thing, with the added 'shock' of certain fist weapons you could get very early on.

It's more like they kept it as half-assed as it always was, but you can't have everything...

I really don't disagree with you but i assume Bethesda had a task to provide the best 18 skills (don't know why it is that #) that best fit in the kind of game they want in Skyrim. I really would be interested in what the perks would have been?

One person working on a game vs an entire development team. Just saying, that's a sort of flawed logic. Also, 5 years IS a long time for a game to be in development these days. Luckily for us, Elder Scrolls games aren't "most games" and they actually contain a decent amount of content. I can't imagine it would take much more effort (relatively) to add a perk/skill set for Hand-to-Hand after having already done it for the other playstyles.

Well said! It doesn't matter what Bethesda does, there will always be something that was cut or not implemented that dismays people. Fortunately for the H2H lovers out there it is still in the game even though it's not a skill. IMO, in a big man's/woman's game, H2H is not very effective towards dragons, armoured foes, and badass beasts.

Sorry but they are the game designers. There is a huge difference between designing the game to empower players to do whatever they want, and tying forms of fighting down to what you feel they should, be it a skill or otherwise. You're not an expert, they are. I know that's probably not the greatest to hear, but it's fact. They know what they are doing, which is why they get payed to design games while you do not (or maybe you do.. but if you do.. I'd think you'd be working on them instead of chatting on a forum about them).

I expect the Devs looked at how unarmed h2h is a combat style that doesn't work well with their intention to emphasize the crafting skills in Skyrim. Can't readily enchant, poison or smith a bare fist (I'm sure some will argue otherwise, whatever...). So they dropped it. Or rather, put it in the same category as grabbing a stick and beating something it (using a torch, which is just a lit stick, and not a trainable skill).

I expect to see a Utube video of someone beating a dragon to death with two torches, then followed up with bare hands. Hopefully they edit out the 20+ minutes of slow grinding to get there.

Maybe in a later game or expansion they'll add in the unarmed martial arts skills that we'd like to see, with actual moves (flips, drop kicks, and so on). Until then, I'm going to use the features they provide and enjoy myself, hopefully you can also.

I used to love punching brown bears to death in OB. One of those things like jumping 80' that didn't make any sense, but was loads of fun. However, there may be magic, but this isn't a superhero game. If I am reduced to jumping 10', and only punching bandits and townsfolk to death, in the name of a bit more realism, then fair enough. I just hope I can actually feel this 'gritty realism' they claim has been a big part of the design.

Okay imagine your an armour clad bandit, waving your sword about all nasty like. Yarrrrr i`m a badass etc.
I`m sure you would find it effective if Dovahkiin did a whirlwind rush at you and punched you in the head with an armoured gauntlet. Result would be shattered skull :rolleyes:
That`s how it will happen in my game anyway.

This ain`t yer wimpy normal person ye know, this is the Dragonborn

There should be no hand to hand skill because it is useless! There is no aspect of it that makes it better than any other weapon type. Oblivion had awful hand to hand fighting, and the only Bethesda game that I have found hand to hand is worth while in is Fallout: New Vegas. I like that they took away the skill part but kept it in as just something you can do.

Maybe not but you are missing the big picture here. Bethesda hasn't been sitting on their hands looking for stuff to leave out, such as H2H and spears, but instead they have been actually creating a game world that is claimed to be epic by the fortunate individuals who already have played it. So your "more effort" falls to the wayside imo because MOST of us want them to concentrate on more important things. Besides coming up with 16 perks for H2H seems far-fetched even thought they did do it for pickpocketing...hmm.

The amount of perks per skill isnt even is it.

2 years of mulling it over while they cashed in on NV FO3 and Shiv isle and 3 years of actual developement time, on the same engine NOT BUILT FROM SCRATCH, so they don't need to relearn from everything, gave our kitties and attack bonus, and last I read there is no special anim for it, made pickpocketing a skill AGAIN when it was fine understealth but no H2H? alright what ever you say.

Fallout 2 unarmed fighting was realistic in that you had an incentive to aim for the nuts.

Don't you think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that I don't know what the big picture is (or that anyone know's what Bethesda's "big picture" is)? I'm also quite aware that they haven't "...been sitting on their hands looking for stuff to leave out..."; however, when they "...concentrate on more important things." such as marriage (EA called, they want their Sims back) and leave out an entire playstyle (Hand-to-Hand) it seems a tad silly.

That being said, I'm buying Skyrim no matter what. I've loved Oblivion (as flawed as it was) and I'm sure I'll love Skyrim too.

A hand to hand perk tree would have alooooot of potential in my opinion.

I mean at the very least they could have given us ramped up touch spells where we can punch enemies with flaming fists of kungfu.

Who cares if the quality it deserves has never been given to hth? TES isn't about quality, it's always been about quantity. There are games that pull combat off a lot better. Same wtih magic and stealth. But no game ties all these things together. I'm fine with them trying to make each style feel more unique and give a bigger payoff for choosing that style, but it should never come at the cost of other options.

Before I make my post, I feel I must assure you that I too am a fan of unarmed combat; after the basic 'mage' and 'heavy-defence warrior' concepts, a monk or monk-equivalent is one of my favorites classes in any game where it is presented as an option. Now then...




First, I must point out that you include Fallout 3 and New Vegas on your timeline. You must understand that Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics all have unarmed combat in it, and Bethesda was keeping in spirit with the original games for Fallout 3. Fallout New Vegas was done by Obsidian, and has even less place on your timeline.

Secondly, you can still fight unarmed. Khajiit get a racial bonus to it, it's been hinted at that rather than fatigue damage you do straight health damage now, ect.

Thirdly, I have to admit that in a fantasy world such as the one that Skyrim takes place in, hand-to-hand combat would be very limited in effectiveness except to unarmoured targets. Have you ever tried to punch a guy who's wearing a steel briastplate? Trust me, that's an easy way to break your hand.

Now, one could easily improve the effectiveness of hand-to-hand combat with the use of special weapons such as spiked knuckles, katar, ect. Unfortunately, Tamriel is short on martial artists and monastaries. Even the few rare katanas found in the series so far are actually based off Akaviri design. I do hope for the return of a hand-to-hand skill tree (although it has again, been hinted that there is at least 1 hand-to-hand perk in the 2-handed tree, and that the 2-handed tree will cover hand-to-hand attack strength) but really, I feel for this to make sense we'd need to see a sojourn to Akavir or go to a country in Tamriel with a stronger focus on unarmed martial arts.

Can you imagine the crybabies ( :flamethrower: ) that will whine and complain how Bethesda is forcing magic on the true Warrior if flaming fists were one of the perks? IMO it does soud really cool though!

There are actually hand to hand attacks. They are in a video that was leaked from gamescon

Anything other than simple punches?

This is pretty much what I'd posted in the last thread on this:

The idea of enhancing fist strikes with magic makes a lot of sense and bypasses any criticism that hand-to-hand fighting is unfeasible or unrealistic.

Assume it taps into some form of magic (either of the destruction variety or alteration variety or whatever). It's a distinct skill becuse of the highly specific application of that magic. The user isn't learning how to cast a variety of spells, rather highly specific and highly precise spells focused on dealing maximum force to specific points. Armor would no longer be a factor as the actual physical impact is merely a means of focusing the magical impact. You could even have this carry over into the block skill, your hand-to-hand influencing the effectiveness of blocking bare handed.

The skill focuses mostly on speed and staggering the enemy* rather than pure damage output. So, while any given strike would be less damaging than cleaving some mook with a war axe, you would notice the distinction in the rapidity of your strikes and your ability to keep an opponent off balance. Perks could include things like improved armor bypass, greater staggering potential, even increasing the effective range of blows as you learn to better focus attacks from a distance. Instead of draining fatigue, you could drain the magicka bar. Once the bar has been depleted you are either punching using only your own physical strength, or you manage to eek out small bursts of magic with decreased damage output and chance of stunning the enemy.

Beyond this, I think the presentation and "cool factor" is far greater with this sort of system, increasing the chance that it stays in future TES titles with perhaps, an even greater focus.

*I'd also prefer greater degrees of a stagger in any system (hand-to-hand present or not), with the most extreme knocking an opponent over and the least allowing them to still make penalized attacks. I think a stagger spectrum is better and more interesting than a binary perfectly fine-stumbling backwards sort of system.


And cuz it deserves to be reposted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A07WNupEXk&t=3m0s

I would have been one of those people saying it was hogwash to force magic into that combat style. But I would have survived because it still would be a combat style. The way things are now it's just a bar fighting gimmic.

Hand to hand was a combat specialization in Oblivion and a stealth specialization in Morrowind. I don't see how introducing a magic element to combat in a magical world is "forcing" magic into a combat style. It makes sense that magic would supplement fist attacks when you're facing heavily armored and heavily armed opponents.

No, not at all actually. Where is this magic coming from? Does it drain your magicka?

What doesn't make sense about it?