We went from total dice-rolls (Arena/Daggerfall/Morrowind) to always hitting (Oblivion), Skyrim seems to be only continuing on the same path with no spell-making and possibly no attributes and even LESS skills (I'm starting to get impressed. Maybe in TES VII, we'll have Combat, Magic, and Stealth for skills.)

Er...

Iron Warhammer weighs 30, Steel 39, Silver 48, Elven 66, Glass 75, Ebony 84, Daedric 93. So your complaint is their damage "should be" based on weight...which given the damage done by these weapons in-game it apparently is, and...

:facepalm:

I concur with OP's suggestions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPgr94VYA4.

Sorry you reminded me of that.

I think realistic weapon damage would kill the magical RPG effect of TES series, and they could make a damaged wood dagger do 1000 dmg and an enchanted titanium reinforced daedric battleaxe of uber death to 50 dmg. So long as the dagger is MUCH harder to obtain, I'm alright with it. All that matters is gameplay balance, and not having the strongest weapons also the most common. Not their names/types.

A Clockwork Orange. Its classic.

Coming from Morrowind, Oblivions combat felt fantastic. Morrowind was definitely my favorite of the series, but the combat was mediocre at best. I would never want to go back. Hidden dice rolls were nice, but really they feel archaic now. There was nothing wrong with them, but I'm glad they are gone. Combat in Oblivion was MUCH more fluid, and it seems that Skyrim is heading in the same direction.

And maybe spellmaking doesn't work with this system? Magic in Skyrim had definitely had an overhaul, and I wouldn't judge it by one deleted feature. They probably took it out because it didn't work well with the new magic system, which is fine.

And three less skills, indeed, the skill system has been cut. But with 180+ perks, Skyrim will have much more character customization than Oblivion or Morrowind.

Just an Opinion. Not trying to flame. (Wow, wildly off topic. I would love to discuss this more, but we should do so in a PM)

Ironically, in real life, no two-handed sword weighed more than 8 lbs (Physically impossibly to wield a heavier sword than that effectively)... and most weighed between 4-6.5 lbs (Scottish Claymore weighed 5 lbs).

And I don't like how the OP has forgotten Elven (Honed to such a sharp and hard blade you'd cut yourself just by looki-OW!), Ebony (My Blade can Cut Through Armor... and still finely dice a tomato!), Orcish (Yeah, our smithing technique is 2000 years ahead of its time. Bugger off), and Dwarven (Crafted of an unknown, irreplicable material, and can maintain a previously believed impossible edge against unimaginable duress).

All four of those metals are well beyond Modern crafting techniques or materials we have to work with. Daedric is Ebony weaponry that likely functions like "Power" weapons from Warhammer 40k - Eminating a destructive field from the soul of the trapped daedra that starts unmaking matter at its edges before the blade actually makes contact. Yeah. All of those inflict more trauma on a body than any Earth-made Katana (Historically inferior to the western Rapier and Long Swords due to the available inferior materials.), no matter how much ye olde weeabo wishes to believe otherwise

The reason the Empire uses Steel is because it's all the above are either Lost Arts (Elven/Aldmeri and Dwemer), crafted of ridiculously rare/hard-to-work-with Materials (Ebony), or the people crafting them don't feel like giving out their trade secrets to the Imperials (Orcish). Daedric is incredibly awesome.

The problem is with the aggressive item leveling in Oblivion.

Honestly, look at Borderlands they did it right in there own respects. Yes i mean the action/rpg that contained guns- Yes lots of guns. Before you abandon this idea for the fact that guns "can't be in elderscrolls" please actually read my idea.

I am comparing the system of brands of guns which are easily replacable by variations of weapons. Some brands had insane damage output but were horrifically slow to shoot and reload, while others were the opposite, weak but fast rate of fire and average reload.

This could easily be implemeted into Skyrim and all it needs is to throw a durability score kind of thing to differentiate items while making them all useful characters. For example a Assassin character would prefer a swift yet powerful sword, while happily negelating durability. Whereas a Knight character would support durability and strength over speed as he would see more use out of the blade.

And it would still allow for weapons to be just plain superior to any other by having it ridiculously expensive or hard to obtain.

And then, didn't Borderlands also have the high-capacity, really durable machine-guns that shot high-explosive bullets?

On another note:
I hate fantasy Sword-And-Sorcery combat that strives too hard for realism. Unless you have a PhD in Anatomy, you have no idea exactly what the human body can live through. And even then, you can't be 100% sure.

Sometimes, playing Hollywood Conan or other Arnold Schwarzenegger-inspired character is more fun than some cautious warrior. If I wanted that sort of play, I'd go for Dwarf Fortress or the roguelike Dungeon Crawl

One of my first mods for Oblivion was "Steel hurts". I rebalanced all of the damage stats and weapon weights. Damage went up and weights went down.

One of my first acts in Skyrim will be to open the editor and look at weapons stats, armor stats, and loot distribution tables.

Well obviously you missed the warning that was present involving the guns being irrelevent, which in my mind includes explosive ammo because you know, hand-n-hand kinda thing.

But with that said i have yet to care deeply for a weapon system that utlizes the- OOOO this is so much better than my original sword- every fifth of a level. Its really repetive and unoriginal for that matter. How about getting a system where player skill is relitively important where you can actually gain a sense of achievement because then again isnt that what video games are about. Not button mashing the latest goblin to death. Just sayin.

It's funny because I agree completely

Maybe high value materials (ebony, glass etc.) would change not so much damage, but instead durability, enchanting power (let's hope...), behaviour of the weapon in combat and chance to hit? I don't know, just suggestions.

i forgot i had changed the weights as well. its silly to have a warhammer that is a fraction of the weight of another warhammer. the whole point of the weapon is to deliver as much mass as possible as quickly as possible onto a target. the max for earthly warhammers seems to be 30 lbs. you can make them bigger but supposedly you end up swinging them slower and thus do less damage. warhammers should all be very similar in weight. last time i checked gravity, albiet moon like, was still a force on nirn. im assuming that acceleration and momentum is also still on nirn as well.

having a game world make some sense on some basic levels needs to be done. sort of like "where are the bathrooms in cyrodil" sure you can just say that its nirn and people swallow magic poop eating pills and so dont have to use them but who would accept that.

Fixed that for you

ok thanks...........i was thinking of sledgehammer but it makes sense they would be lighter for one handed use.

A Clockwork Orange . . . you can't bash that. That Avatar is the coolest thing ever. Stanley Kubrick should slap all of you for talking smack!

Anyways. There is some truth to the original post here. There should be less degree of separation between weapon strength, at least as it relates to similar/same weapons. I still think there should be a range of damage, but maybe not such a vast range. Balance is always the issue though. The major problem does have to do with character progression. We want to wield better, more expensive/rare items as we get to higher levels, but maybe perks can add that sense of advancement.

wow what a constructive comment!
i can clearly see you are committed to finding new and better ways to improve a gaming mechanic!

also, to people saying Nirn isnt earth, i have news for you.

it is, infact the only reason at all that it is different is because of the presence of gods which allow magical feats to be performed.

The 12 lbs ones were 2-handed. 1-handed hammers weighed much less. Of course, a 6-lb Zweihander was almost as effective as a Warhammer when you smashed the foe with the hilt instead of the blade.

And Nirn isn't Earth - Nirn has 2 moons! And a completely different cosmology. And different continent shapes.

When I first saw that avatar I wanted to punch my computer screen.

Always complicated or something goes wrong with balancing.
I hope one day for location damage like FO.

the perks could easily replace the stupid plastic weapons you get at the beginning. im just throwing numbers out here, your starting character would have armor with protection of 100 and a weapon that does 100 normal damage but since its iron or steel its enchantment is limited to a max of say 10 extra magic damage. same with the armor thus with full enchantments your amor is 110 and your weapon is 110. now we skip forward to a high level character using daedric and his default weapons do 110 and his armor is 110 so they are a little bit better right off the bat. however daedric armor and weapons have a much higher enchantment level say 40 for each. making your max armor 150 and your max weapons 150. which is significantly higher than the normal steel weapons but mostly because of the added enchantment instead of normal damage. we arent done yet either. your high level character is going to have perks such as extra 10% damage with swords or the already confirmed mace ignoring armor (i hope that isnt overpowered in game)

so even though the normal steel and daedric weapons dont have a huge difference in normal damage the daedric weapons have a huge advantage in enchanted damage making them worthwhile. this seems more realistic and logic and still makes people with daedric and more perks much more dangerous but at least in a way that makes sense.

Why should an eldritch piece of otherworldly material that disrupts the Material Plane around it do so little more damage than a sharpened chunk of metal made by a relatively primitive species?

damascus steel supposedly had carbon nanotubes in it. the katana which is older than color television and the VHS recorder are still considered one of if not the sharpest swords in the world. also they arent completely magical. for instance they obviously still lose their edge because they lose durability. if they were some mystical magical thing why would they ever need sharpening. hell we have swords in this world that have blades that last for a very long time retaining their sharpness such as the aforementioned damascus steel. you seem to have a very negative view of sword technology. these arent sticks and stones they are weapons of war that have progressed over thousands of years of development and tweaking.

also as i posted the number are just suggestions. you could make the difference say 100 vs 120 or even 130, but to make it twice as lethal or more is just silly.

The TES equivalent of Damascus Steel is Orcish, not Steel. And Katanas, while sharp, held their edge about as well as a twinkish inmate holds soap.

The Daedric weapons need sharpening because
1. Every weapon in the Elder Scrolls has a ridiculously fast degradation system
2. Even "Unstoppable" Weapons(Ebony) with reality-disrupting fields(Daedric) dependant on the keenness of the edge of the blade need to be repaired when the edge gets dulled by hitting "Impenetrable" Armor (Ebony, Glass, Dwarven, Orcish, and Daedric).