Thank you, Sera!

You should rent it or something, it may not be what you expected but i'm pretty sure it will be a fun game with more than 300 hours of gameplay. This whole thing reminds me of the fallout forums which is the reason i don't go there quite as often as i use to.....

Funny how you mention this, yet according to a recent poll on these forums, Oblivion is the 'fan favorite." And regardless of the "crap" that Bethesda pulls, you're still going to buy their products, so what does that say about you?

You said they wanted to do things different, I was speaking of weapons and on the grounds of weapons it is still one handed/two handed swing swing + bows and arrows nothing in that regard changed from Oblivion to Skyrim, people keep using the same tired excuse "they didnt have time" or its "buggy". how the heck is it buggy for a game not released ontop of having what 2 years of mulling over and 3 years of developement time? and how would they not have time when they had since Oblivion to implement what was lost?

Dual wielding wasnt a primary feature of Skyrim, it was not on the Drawing board and was implemented late, and with that the combat and magick system was re wrapped around it, so no excuse me if I don't buy the "its buggy" or "they don't have time" when they've accomplished things as trivial as Marriage

For the folks that have already decided the game svcks, renting or buying it won't change their opinion, like I said they have already decided what they want to think about the game. Beth will still be more than happy to take their money though. :hubbahubba:

re: Spears.

Just backing up a step, and trying to look at the big picture.

Spears. How do you fight with them? Well, in general, you thrust forward. Obviously, you could also (with a short enough spear, and not fighting in the standard close-array infantry block of spearmen) use it like a quarterstaff. But the Spear itself..... not a terribly large array of combat moves. (Note, I'm thinking of Western spears, not those wacky, super flexible, acrobatic/martial arts spears from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

Now, if I recall correctly, one of the reasons they didn't like how spears worked in Morrowind, was that people could just break the combat system by constantly poking enemies away from them. (This is correct, yes?)

Yeah, you could fix that with some better enemy AI, so they wouldn't just keep advancing and getting poked back. But that leads us again to the limited combat maneuvers of the Spear. You either poke your enemy and keep them away, or they avoid your spear and close into melee range.... at which point you're now helpless, because he's gotten inside the effective radius of the long weapon you're holding. (yeah, yeah.... not something most game combat systems handle well)


So, given the array of issues here (limited moves, problems with exploiting combat AI, lack of "realism HA!" in Spears not being a close-in weapon to start with), along with the desire (whether you agree with it or not) to have a more compact list of skills...... what would you do to "fix" spears? How would you make them work, so that they weren't broken and actually made an interesting and useful contribution to combat?

Kiralyn.


you can still "break" the combat system by backing up to this day in oblivion....

they made moving backwards slower.


so.....why can't spears be in again?

Keep enemies distant, avoid physical debuffs, deals massive damage at a distance, breathing room etc etc low angle of attack, you need to be direct, can hold your own in a hallway as opposed to every enemy and their mother hitting you at all sides in oblivion?


yeah

Well the only thing I can do is speculate on why they decided to do anything. Logic would tell me that the developers thought the duel wielding mechanic was a sufficient enough change that they didn't need to reintroduce weapon types. Another possibility is that Bethesda really really liked not having spears and crossbows and throwing weapons, and so they didn't feel motivated to reintroduce them.

However the most LIKELY scenario is the former coupled with a focused objective of improving radiant AI, crafting the world and adding other content (voice actors, more complex quests, a more believable world) over changing whatever it is you hold in your hand and use to kill things.

Yeah, they didn't like the backup maneuver, so they changed it so you couldn't do that..

They didn't like how you could just keep an enemy permanently at range, so.....

What changes would you make to Spear use so that they 1) couldn't be exploited the way they could, and 2) make them actually interesting and meaningful? Instead of all the "Give us spears!", I'd like to hear some actual constructive and creative ideas of HOW they would do so.


(Edit: as I laid out in my previous post, I don't really see any good ways to do it. The way I see it, spears are a close-formation infantry weapon, good for getting large blocks of untrained farmers to be actually useful on a battlefield. They seem pretty lousy for small group mixed-melee. There's a reason most trained soldiers who used long weapons also carried a short sword or similar blade - once your enemy got too close, you abandoned the clumsy, unwieldy long weapon, and pulled out something that'd actually be useful for a melee.)

Over-dramatic much? I seriously doubt "every enemy and their mother hitting you at all sides" happened, but for the sake of time and reasonable arguments we'll pretend you never said this. Spears have both their pro's and con's, neither of which matter at this point, the whole reasoning behind Bethesda's choice to keep them out of Skyrim has been clearly stated with regard to the inability to create seamless combat mechanics for them.

If you had trouble "holding your own" in hallways in previous titles using swords or other weaponry, the user might be the issue and not your lack of spears... <_<

you can do the exact same thing with Bows and arrows with regards to this "exploit" as you could spears......



how about you go on Oblivion, find a ruin, preferably when with alot of trolls, go into a hallway and fight them with a Sword and then come back, about over dramatic.

i am upset by the loss of spears and other weapons, as well as being unable to mix and match armor anymore... and dont say its still possiblem because it isnt... who wants to walk around in a large piece of steel armor covering almost your entire body, and one small piece of some other armor?

a cuirass alone would be enough for some people, but now they're forced to wear greaves with it, as well as pauldrons!

boots are one item, gloves are one item, pauldrons/cuirasses/greaves are all one item... and there is the helmet.

thats all, and that hardly gives us the hope of mixing/matching armor.

im upset by all the losses we took... but i am willing to try skyrim out and see if bethesda gives us enough to make up for all the losses we suffered.

though, if they remove anymore stuff from future games, im gonna lose hope in them, completely... because it seems the most customization we have now is in character creation, and thats it... in morrowind, character creation never ended, since we had so many options for clothing/armor/weapon combinations, we could change our characters in so many ways while playing.

they basically reversed customization since morrowind, i suppose... not too many options during character creation, but plenty of things to use while playing... now we have plenty of options during character creation, but very few things to use while playing.

I do hope that the time put into quest mechanics, radiant AI and the world in general will have you 'customizing' your character well into the endgame.

my only concern is that they are going to make the same mistake the developers of deus ex IW made. if you watched the developer interview of where they went wrong they specifically mentioned that one of the reasons they did stuff was to streamline the game and to remove redundant features or features they didnt think were being used by alot of people. they totally blew that one. im not so worried about skyrim since there isnt really anywhere to go from oblivion but up but i hope they dont make the same mistakes other developers made and overly consolize the game.

As for the question regarding spears, their range of attack styles can simply be increased or changed so that they aren't completely useless at close range (but are considerably weaker).

In fact, I think all long range/large weapons should work this way. Say for example, two handed swords, they're far more effective when your enemy is greater than arm length distance from you, especially if their person is at the last foot or so of the blade. However, if they should move closer then the weapon should do less damage and become more easily blocked, and once they're within the full length of your arms, you simply shouldn't be able to swing your weapon to damage them. Instead, you could pummel them with that thing called a "pummel" that just so happens to sit at the end of your sword's handle. Bash them in the face with your pummel, or bunt them (push them back) with the sword. This would disorient them or otherwise cause them to be momentarily incapable of fighting back, and would allow you to get your distance.

Also, hand to hand combat could have some effect on this. Hand to hand combat could not only include fist fighting skill, but also other forms of combat, such as kicking or grappling. These abilities could be used in conjunction with your weapon skill to hurt and disorient the opponent when they come within close range, and they could be used with any type of weapon, but would still be weaker in terms of damage dealt than your weapon attacks.

Theres little if any question that whats added its good, its just bloody annoying that this game sat on the precipice of ultimate customizability and options + character dynamics and basically vented all of that into the poop chute with "simplified" cousins that didnt need to be simplified/cut

well, his name is "skum"... i think that speaks volumes. :whistling:

morrowind was awesome, and its still my favorite, but i did love oblivion quite a bit.

though i dont like the way that guy went on about "bowing down to console buddies" and crap like that... im sick of the console vs PC crap going on all over these forums.

i'd imagine if they went back to PC-only, they'd be losing out on alot of money, i know money isnt everything, but it IS what allows them to create more of these games... without money, well... we can kiss goodbye to TES.

i call shananigans on that. i have never seen a poll where oblivion came out ahead of morrowind on these forums.

Aw man someone is gonna post a link to that post and make you look silly...

Not gonna be me though

I lied.... the link is in a couple posts ahead.


Edit: Type Shmypo

I would be very surprised actually.
What people on this forum sneeringly call Morrowind fans are in my experience people that are all about inclusion and choice in their game.
What people on this forum sneeringly call Oblivion fans are in my experience all about 'never used it, I dont mind its gone. 'redundant' and 'OP'.
But hey, thats just my way of looking at things and I thought it might help balance out what you said, so if you add it all up it comes to a statisfying 0.

Naaaaahhhh I lied...

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1215516-skyrim-player-poll/

Shame about birthsigns..

Sure they are all about inclusion and choice.... So long as that is the way it was done in MW...... :thumbsup:

I think you are giving people too much credit here. Go into about any thread on this forum debating something and you'll see the exact same handful of people taking the "anti-Skyrim" position on every topic no matter what it is. Make a list of issues and we could pretty quickly and easily make a list of the folks who would go done the list and say "Skyrim did it wrong" on every single one of those issues no matter what they are.

People should be warned Bethesda has exagerated in the past about new features and I will be very suprised if dragons, romance and AI story work as described so far.

Furthermore I am very much disgusted by renaming already existing features and advertising them as new. The way I see it Smithing is just renamed armorer skill, this so called new engine is just an xbox optimized version of Oblivion's engine, and worst of all the perk system. Common people open your eyes! Oblivion had perks when skills reached a milestone, how is this any different from picking a perk at level up when you have the required skill?? Todd has said it himself this reformat is implemented to give the player a good feeling at level up, he did not say to add anything new to the game. Many of the perks available will probably be watered down versions of what we had in Oblivon so they can be picked multiple times

For those defending Bethesda's choices with these "additions" you are being tricked by marketing B.S.

My suspicion is the real development work is being put into the next series to corrospond with the next Xbox launch in 2012-2013