While I'm a big fan of all the Elder Scrolls games, I, like many others on the forums, hope to see significant improvements to the melee combat system in the next Elder Scrolls game. The following describes a new melee combat system that I believe would be an improvement compared to that in Oblivion.

Smart Swing System

In Arena, the player could control the direction of their weapon swing based on how they moved the mouse on the screen. In Morrowind and Oblivion, movement of the mouse was important for head movement/player direction and was not used to control the direction of the weapon's attack, leading to random and sometimes unwanted attacks (e.g. wide horizontal side slashes that could hit nearby allies).

In order to provide the player with more control of their weapon, an improved combat system could first identify which enemy the player is targeting (the closest enemy within melee attack distance with enemy center point closest to the center cursor).

Once the targeted enemy is determined, the center cursor's position relative to this enemy would determine swing type (see avatar picture).

For swords, pressing the attack button in bounding box:

1 = upper left to downward right chop
2 = downward vertical chop
3 = upper right to downward left chop
4 = left to right horizontal slash
5 = forward stab
6 = right to left horizontal slash
7 = downward left to upper right slash
8 = rising vertial slash
9 = downward right to upper left slash

Bounding box regions could be changed based on weapon type and enemy size as necessary.

Furthermore, this system could allow a combo system based on player skill. For example, if the player initiates a right to left slash by pressing the attack button while the cursor is maintained in the invisible bounding box 6, the player could not attack again until the weapon's full swing animation was complete (both outward swing and retraction of weapon back to ready position on the right hand side). However, if the player were to initiate the right to left swing (cursor in box 6) and move the cursor to bounding box 4 during the swing, pressing the attack button again after the completion of the swing but BEFORE the retraction of the weapon to the right hand side could allow the player to initiate a left to right slash. Downward and upward weapon swings could also be linked together for a variety of different fast attack combinations.

The Smart Swing System could be used in first person view mode. If the player was in third person view, a Mount and Blade-like combat system could be used.

In addition to the Smart Swing System, enemies could have critical regions that cause extra damage/special combat advantages if struck. For example, stabbing (cursor in bounding box 5) an unarmored human in the heart could cause extra damage and damage over time (with a nice blood spray). Completely horizontal slashes (cursor in bounding box 4 or 6) that crosses the neck region could cause decapitations.

Some weapons may even provide unique critical attack regions. Daggers could stab the eyes or spine, providing extra incentive to use the low range, low normal attack damage weapon.

Other melee combat features such as slow motion and special attack moves could be layered on top of this system for further depth in melee combat. That being said, I would recommend that the player almost always have movement control during execution of special melee attacks. Forcing the player to run X number of steps in a charge attack can easily cause the player to run past the enemy and attack air which is very frustrating and thus prevents the player from even using these types of special attacks.

A targetting system Like those in Legend of Zelda would be nice. Less hitting of allies and nothingness and more hitting of enemies. Wilst maintaining a fair combat system. VATS is cool and fun, but it is totally unfair.
Edit: I should've read your whole post, YES thats exctly what I want. Combo system, You are a genius. Oh and making the animations more epic like Soul Calibur.

Thanks! :laugh:

All I want is good animations, locational damage and blood and gore.

Fallout 3? TES has never been a gory series. Actually I don't care as long as the limbs don't exlpode/fall off as frequently as they did in Fallout 3.

Agreed. Having a way to better control your weapon swings would make locational damage easier to implement in the game. It's hard to stab someone in their guts if you use a downward slash (or some other random swing).

Yes that sounds nice and all but what about the people who only have gaming systems like 360/PS3 to play on?

All suggestions should go in this thread http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1111409-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-175/

But, while we're on the subject and it's not lost among so many others, here's my 2 cents.

Little complicated, not very intuitive. I think the original directional attacks were mouse based, which is more "realistic."

I agree with area damage, head and chest should do more damage yadda yadda. What I really want is active parrying. If you see your enemy swing down from his right side, you swing up to your left side, and as long as he is not much faster than your (in game and RL) the attack will be blocked. Your relative skill values will determine if one of you recoils or if combat continues normally.

I love Mount & Blade, the combat is flawless

However, this kind of system would never work in an RPG. In Mount & Blade, it works on the basis of both momentum and the fact that you're fighting humans, and most people will die with one or two well placed hits

In Oblivion, you're fighting monsters, heros and mythical beings, which can take many many hits before dying. Unless this was addressed, it'd be a mess

Instead of having everything be preset for you, how about something like this, using the XBox 360 controller for an example:
Right trigger = swing, right? Well, how about the right trigger holds up the weapon, and moving the right anolog moves the weapon? So to do an upward slash, you hold down the right trigger, and move the right anolog up quickly. To do a thrust, you could press down the right anolog. Perhaps this could work with shield slams as well, just with the left trigger instead. And if you need to look at an enemy next to you, just let go of the right trigger and move the right stick.

This system should still work on the consoles. The console players just need to position the center cursor in the different bounding boxes by using the anolog stick (right stick I believe since it usually controls player view).

Yep, although we have a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1112090-tes-v-ideas-and-suggestions-176/

I don't think a more complex combat system is required. Daggerfall had a system like this and I personally found it clunky. I suppose with some refinement something like Die By the Sword could be interesting, particularly with the ability to bind a few 'standard' attacks as well as a few custom combos but something this involved needs to be at the very core of the gameplay - and with TES melee combat is an important gameplay element but it is not the important gameplay element.