You have to admit there is romance in one handed sword fighting, right? Supprisingly I've not seen one person mention this, and you guys have mentioned everything from sea monsters to helmet outlines to sailing a ship to taming random creatures.

What happens when we pick up our first sword? Surely they wont make us go find another one before we get to use it? (pretty obvious it wont be that) I'm more worried about them forcing two handed fighting. What about holding one dagger and nothing else? Should you be able to block like that?

What do you guys think? It's something thats bugged me since day one.... :S

om nom nom

One handed fighting have the big advantage of being able to cast spells in your other hand.

I'm hoping if i just a equip one sword and leave the other hand blank that I will be able to punch with it.

I've wondered this awhile ago too.

People have suggested a much faster motion with the sword or a small increase to critical hit damage or chance.:shrug:

Bukee - some people don't want to be a spell sword. Just a shortsword in one hand .


I'm also wondering about a block button or will the hand with nothing in it just try to punch or what?

This was among the first things mentioned on the forums when duel wielding was revealed, actually. I'll always prefer a single one-handed sword over a sword and shield, or two weapons, or a two-hander, but it does sort of put you at a disadvantage if everyone else has a shield or is duel wielding, etc. That said, I expect good perks for this playstyle to compensate.

I would like to see one handed weapon fighting (meaning no spell and no shield in other hand) be given a bit of grace and finesse. Things like real parries and timed blocks, other stuff like that. I would like it to not feel like a penalty for not bringing an additional weapon or spell to battle.

I thought they said that you could also use two hands for a single handed weapon, which makes it do more damage while still being quicker than a two handed weapon.

Well, what we've been -litterally- told is that we 'cannot block with a spell in one hand and a one handed weapon in the other'.

There are a couple of possibilities here:
1. You will likely find a dagger or a basic shield alongside your first sword to block with.
2. For some completely absurd reason, you only lose the ability to block while wielding a spell, but not when you have nothing in the other hand.
3. Blocking with 1 handed swords is not a block, it is a parry - that is to say, you strike an enemy's attack and deflect it instead of just receiving it (considering blocking with a sword in oblivion did little in terms of damage reduction, it was almost pointless apart from avoiding getting staggered by pesky Clanfear).
4. -edited in- What Nutimik said just above me.

I would personally love to see option 3. Striking an enemy's weapon/limb mid attack to steer it off course would be absolutely EPIC (and require some player skill in terms of timing - see battle rythm).

I will however assume that we WILL be able to block with one handed swords ASSUMING we have nothing in the off hand. This is because Bethesda stated that in the case of a spell, the button usually for blocking becomes the cast button (ie. what lefty and righty click do depends on what you have equiped!).
Alternatively, having nothing in the off hand would just mean you get to punch people while you swing your sword around like a crazed madman... Wait- that's epic!

:tes:

At the moment, this is also pretty much the only thing I'm worried about at the moment. That and the fact that you can't block when you have a spell in your other hand. I mean c'mon! Why the hell not!?
What am I supposed to do? Attempt to dodge every swing they make, or just take every swing they make, and wait for the opportunity to make mine? I think Bethesda are making a serious mistake here.

I have a question about dual-wielding...

So when wielding two weapons, are both weapons at at full effectiveness? And kind of related is there a dual-wielding skill?

I would like to see a dual-wielding skill, where at a low-level with dual-wielding, each weapons' effectiveness may be at like 50% (due to the inexperience of handling two weapons). Then as you rise in skill the weapon effectiveness would increase and eventually reach 100% effectiveness. So dual-wielding wouldn't be much of a strength in the beginning, but in the long run a dual wielding character would be very useful. This would also put equal reason to being a one handed fighter, as especially at low-levels your character won't be extremely weaker than an equal leveled character who is dual wielding.

I say, the bare offhand can be used to allow a person to send in a jab to knock the enemy around a bit, grab hold and stab, or something of the sort. Maybe allow a more silent assassination by allowing the player to cover the person's mouth, while the armed hand dives the dagger into the person's neck/major blood vessels.

The following fighting styles should be like this: 2h is more about high single damage, dual is for low but fast damage, 1h + spell as an all-rounded fighting style, 1h + shield for tanking, 2 spells for magical variability/power, and 1h + fist for strategic melee.

I really hope it turns out this way.

According to some magazine (I think it was the Italian or Nordic magazine, I forget), each weapon has a damage and block stat, so unless it was a mistranslation, you should be able to block with a one-handed weapon, with nothing else in the other hand. This would make me happy.

I guess otherwise they could do it D&D feat style except with perks. Have to take Two Weapon Fighting, Improved TWF, Oversized TWF, etc. I wouldn't mind much I think, but I like your idea better for Elder Scrolls.

I'm also hoping they have an easy one-button way to switch to a hotkeyed item to equip in either hand if we can't block with sword and spell. Then I could cast when I need to from afar, then switch out my spell for one handed fighting and parry up close.

I would expect that with 2 weapons that a power attack would mean hitting with both at the same time, whereas a power attack with a single weapon would be a 2 handed swing, and quick attacks would be with one hand, therefore a single weapon would have better "armor penetration" since you do a single attack with more damage whereas 2 weapons it would just be 2 weaker attacks

Hell, it works in Star Wars and that is pretty damn close to magic. Why not just make so you still block by holding both Triggers, but you can't cast a spell while blocking instead? That makes more sense, as a person repeatedly blocking the mace swings of an enemy may not be able to concentrate on spellcasting. Also it would be really unfair to just hold block AND a flamethrower spell lol.

Couldn't you put a shield in one hand and spell in the other to block?

I never really liked the block system in that you could block strikes just as well with your little dagger/sword as you could a gigantic shield.

I'm sure you can do shield and spell, and I agree. Weapons should have a defense rating for blocks/parries based on length and material. Blocking should also be timed for maximum effectiveness.

I think the parrying idea is awsome!!

Not sure what they are thinking with the "spells??? Well you tottaly forgot how to block then!" idea. I guess it balances.

Everyone seems to spout alot of things saying "I think they confirmed" or "I'm pretty sure they have said.." but I've read everything from game informer, oxm, links from twitter etc and found nothing. Where are you people getting all this (often conflicting) information from? 0_o

Power for a good melee attack comes from the body not the arms.

Thrusts can succeed when powered only by the arm, however, the arms are primarily used to GUIDE the sword blow and act as the transmission device to bring power from the body into the target.

I first discovered this while doing kinetic energy tests with different weapons in the 1980s. I was amazed to discover that the kinetic energy from a two-handed weapon was not significantly higher than from a one-handed weapon of the same weight and length. This may be hard to understand, because most of your experience may tell you that you normally are hit harder by a two-handed weapon. This is because most two-handed weapons have much more mass and a longer lever for a blade and handle. Even beginning fighters often instinctively throw blows with their body instead of their arms when handling a two-handed weapon. Remember that using two hands on a weapon allows you to place the fulcrum and effort points of control further away from each other. This extra control leverage contributes a great deal to better handling of the tip movement. However the extra pushing force from the leverage is almost insignificant for impact because it is so slow. As such, on it’s own this additional (but slow) pushing force creates very poor impulse (less efficient transfer of force).

Grabbing a "one handed" weapon with 2 hands will give you more tip control (accuracy, that is why baseball batters and golfer use two hands ) and that extra control can also be better for feints and it can give you more blocking power.

But not really all that much extra hitting force.

If you are fighting your own weapon for control because it is very long or top heavy that can "waste" power that would have gone into your attack, thus supporting the misconception that using two hands gives you more power.

See here for more information like this:

http://www.spookyfx.com/book/tromp.html

obviously you have never used a sword in combat personally i have used a broad sword a foil and a (boken practices version of a katana). and i can tell you for a fact that all the power for the first two come from the wrists and arms only the katana uses strength from the shoulders if you use as mutch powr as you can muster you leav yourself open fo a quick stab undr the arm or to the chest both most likely fatal but that is getting of topic. i expect the single sword will be able to block i expect when you pull the off hand trigger you will block and holding it will do something along the lines of the shield bash but more likely a lunge

Jumping off what someone else said, but going to call it in detail, seeing a perk called "Fencer" that grants bonuses to Defense and critical hit chance while wielding only with the main hand.

that wold be awesome bit i expect you will already get a damage bonus and probably a critical hit bonus because when you are welding two weapons you have to focus on both blades whereas with a single blade you can focus on the your blade and your enemy's blade allowing you to attack an opining rather then with 2 weapons where you force him to leave himself open when when you attack with your second weapon you are no longer focusing on the first and he can snap his sword down and defend himself so in a real world setting there are advantages to two handed weapons but a good swordsman will trump a good dual welder

Is this a serious question? Of course you can fight with just one hand, I mean do you really think any sane person at all would deside, "lets allow them to put anything in any hand, but just not one a single sword." Youll just use the other hand for punching if you wnat, unarmed is still a skill I believe, even if it isnt youll still be able to punch that I can promise. The answer to this question is so uncomplicated its rediculous

It would be nice if there were some perks to help compensate for not using the off hand. So a one handed style could work, but at the end of the day not using 1/2 your hands should put you are at least a slight disadvantage.