If you didn't know when the enemy would swing his weapon in Oblivion, you have some pretty bad reaction timing

I mean, it's too easy. I don't know how someone would "fail" at timed blocking, at least as far as speculation goes.

I would say it all depends on what kind of shield you're using. For a buckler, timed blocking is quite a reality. The shield is just too small to hold up, you have to intercept strikes when they happen. For anything else larger though, you're right, timing doesn't matter as much and holding your shield up in front of you is appropriate for multiple situations.

....and holding your shield shouldn't result in a shield bash.

I'm willing to bet it won't limit how long you can hold your shield just make it less effective the longer you have it up. I'm thinking just tapping block will bring it up and down and holding it rather than pressing it will trigger a bash, it would be kind of weird to have to wait until a certain arbitrary blocking period is up to perform a bash. I see it as a way to give you an incentive to not just turtle your way through a fight and keep the action going switching from offense to defensive as needed like in oblivion but with more consequence so you pay attention to when you have to make your moves.
I understand how people may not like it but I don't get their gripe with it not being realistic and then holding up oblivion like it's a shining example of it. Again I never saw any of the devs say specifically timed blocking is meant to be realistic, it adds elements of realism but the core thing is making the player feel engaged in the combat.

I read somewhere that it's better to block at the last second in Oblivion, so I've done it ever since. It's quite easy to get used to actually, and seems to work much better to be honest. Now when I watch videos of people playing Oblivion who stand there like noobs with their shields blocking their vision, it just looks stupid to me. It's like when you see some noob playing an FPS and not reloading. You just wanna be like ZOMG, your a noob! Long story short I'm slightly upset that it will be mandatory to block using my method, as I liked feeling superior even though it doesn't ACTUALLY change that much. All it does is makes you better able to adjust to opponents attacks, and makes them more likely to attack.

Will you be able to block with a sword in TES V?

I believe so but I think it requires two hands. I think the only time you can't block is 1hander+spell. Or so something I read on the forums the other day would have me believe, so I guess you can take that with a grain of salt.

Huh, I would like to know that as well. It makes logical sense to be able to still.

In 99% of situations, I wouldn't hold my shield up when fighting. I would be quick and nimble and confuse the enemy with my perfect timed blocks and counter strikes. But don't take that option away from me when I want to taunt an enemy, bring my stamina down if I hold a block. But don't take options away and don't make me bash, give me my options.

Doesn't sound like you have a problem then?
And what options are taken away again? Who is forcing you to bash?

Must have been a rumor I heard that in order to do a shield bash, you have to hold your block.

You didn't read my entire post then.

edit: it's not necessarily how it will work but it makes alot more sense than what everyone is saying how it's going to be controlled.

The options wasn't referring to your post. I read that. I was talking about earlier couple of weeks ago or so when I heard of mechanics for shield bash.

But what we've heard only barely describes it and without seeing it ourselves we can only guess. Which is what I've done, tapping block to raise or lower your shield (timed for effectiveness of course) and then it becoming less effective the longer you have it up makes more sense than holding the button to block and then randomly doing a bash after an arbitrary amount of time.

So basically you would still be able to hold it up like you describe it just won't be as effective. Again not entirely realistic but it's more realistic than it was in oblivion.

I've never heard that holding the block button will do a shield bash. What I'd heard was shield bashes are done by holding the block button then pressing the attack button.
That would make a lot more sense and also confirm that holding the block button will result in a continuous block, but I can't imagine it'll be as effective.

I don't have a source for this, though -- there's so much weird, random information floating around from obscure sites that I can't remember where I've read what at all anymore

Ikr? it's hard to distinguish what's just speculation on the forum that you read and what was in an article lol
But I think you are right, I have a vague memory of seeing the same thing but then I go back to my first point :rolleyes: .

:shrug:

As I mentioned, I'm not the greatest "twitch" gamer. I don't do games like Devil May Cry / Bayonetta / Ninja whatever. I was terrible at Street Fighter II, back in the day. I've played some RPGs that had timed-button-press defense features..... and generally ended up not doing well with them, depending on how picky they were (Counter mode in Magna Carta:Tears of Blood, for example.)


Oblivion? I turtled behind my shield until the enemy did a swing-recoil, then dropped the shield to do a quick swing or two. Then back to turtle. With the periodic heal spell to counteract the damage that always leaked through a shield block.

So yeah.... I'm a bit wary of "timed blocking".

In Arena and Daggerfall you couldn't even block.
In Morrowind blocking was by chance.
In Oblivion, you just hold out your sword diagonally and magically blows made at your feet or face and even arrows are blocked. Timed blocking is true blocking. You cannot block a horizontal slash with a horizontal guarding position and you cannot do the same for vertical. You time your blocks in real life combat too. It is a common mechanism that we do in real life but have been used to having dice rolls or eternal guarding do it for us in games.

You probably can just turtle the same as oblivion it just won't be as effective, I doubt it will be extremely punishing and force you to perfectly time the block to when the are just about to hit you; I'm sure we'll be given ample indication of a coming attack and be able to prepare accordingly 1 or 2 seconds beforehand probably won't have much effect on your effectiveness. They aren't exactly making a habit of making the games harder :shrug:.

If the notion that holding block does a bash then turtling will be technically impossible. But I agree on the idea that it will be easy to see attacks coming.

I sincerely doubt holding block will trigger a bash though. It just doesn't make sense that a bash is suddenly triggered after an arbitrary amount of time blocking. holding block and pressing the attack button otoh makes way more sense and even more so than the controls I thought of before. I think I did read somewhere that's how it will work too, but I'll have to actually look into it before I say for certain.

I wonder if shields can block magical attacks now too. Just something I thought of.

edit:hmm everything I can find with a quick search comes up saying holding block will do a bash :shrug: that makes little sense to me

Now I can't find any information whatsoever on how the shield bash controls will work, despite looking through several websites.
We MUST have gotten some notion of the controls somewhere!

Seems like a side effect of having to fit all the commands on a console controller. (Along with coming up with somewhat generic "the two triggers activate your two hands" commands for the multi-option dual wield system). Click to block, click&hold to bash.

What are you nuts? In real life you keep your [censored] shield up and you move it to block the enemies blows. There's little timing, and more like keep it between you and him until you see an attack of opportunity. You need timing to parry with blades though, but it makes no sense. LOL I PARRY WITH SHIELD!.

Yeah this is all based on a snippet of information from a Game Informer article that stated shield bashing involves holding the block button. Ok and the various power attacks in oblivion were triggered by holding the attack button. It's a bit early to be foaming at the mouth because we assume that simply holding the button down too long makes you wave you shield like an idiot. Maybe such awkward control control choices such as having the difference between a block and accidental and ill-timed shield bash be how long you hold the button and only that might be more believable if they were desperate to conserve button functions. Somehow this description of blocking mechanics seems... insufficient.

The other bit here is based on the same article in which they state that timing is an important factor in blocking and that holding your shield out forever in front of you as though this were a Zelda game is either not possible or ineffective. Again this one piece of of information, reported on the same site which had previously been going nuts about that bizarre and completely false rumors about Skyrim being integrated with Facebook (to be clear, that is not true) - its really not quite enough details to start freaking out that blocking is now a hypersensitive all or nothing twitch-fest. Timing is important, but how important. - hopefully we get clarification on that with the answers to the fan interview questions.

Maybe a system that allowed you to continuous block with a smaller range of attack options that required you to lower your shield for the more powerful attacks would work. In any event, I'm sure one of the first mods out the gate will be some sort of 'bullet time' mod that allows those players who don't enjoy twitch play to slow action to a more comfortable level, making active blocking easier.