It won't change what I play, it just sounds like it will be a lot more fun.

Yes, but for the better. In oblivion and now in F:NV I just back pedal and smash the left mouse button to swing my sword/knife. I know to dash forward, swing and then backpedal to avoid all damage. This makes combat repetitive and boring. Slower backpedaling would solve my problem. I am unsure about the timed blocking thing. I didn't really like combat in the witcher because it felt like I was playing a quick time event. Hopefully it will feel natural.

I'm always a pretty hardcoe mage first time around. I will probably have a summon monster spell in my left hand and a destruction spell in my right.

Cool article.. I hadn't see that one!



All great modifications.. it looks like they're finally getting serious about making combat interesting. Daggerfall and Morrowind were point and click, Oblivion flirted with more interesting mechanics but came up far too shallow.. we shall see, but I'm interested now :biggrin:

I will be all guerilla fighter, charge in with a axe and take a couple of swings and rush out. Then maybe try to sneak in to cover and shoot a few arrows.
Actually you the bow to bring down the big guys of the parties then axe the rest.

Poison and high cliffs will be my friends.

well ill definably be more careful with my arrows since they will be more sparse
ill dual wield a short sword and dagger or long sword and dagger
if i have to use a spell ill sacrifice the dagger to cast it, unless i cast a spell to help me get a stealth kill.

will definably have to be more tactical.

Saw nothing about fixing potions. Will continue to slam at enemies and chug potions. Same old, same old.

They should fix the Atronach by allowing other ways to regain your lost mana. Maybe there are some environmental effects or places where you can svck up some mana, or special trees in the forest that resonate with magic that you can siphon a little off of without damaging the tree, so it will stay healthy and not die (if you take too much). They could also make a rule that if you're within 10 feet of your enemy and he has magic items, you can siphon some of his mana from the items, rendering them either reduced in power or dead, depending on the Dev's preferences. I think a cool animation of a long thin ghostly line vibrating between you (very feint so you can almost not see it) should do well to let you know you're siphoning, and your enemy can't see you doing this, either.

Perhaps there is a very expensive bar in each town that has special beds made of an ancient wood, and there is only one room per town, and sometimes that room is already rented by someone so you either have to wait or kill him to get the room (depending on your character's alignment (how you play it)), and you can only buy 8 nights per month from any one city or you are reported (to someone in the political system) for being magically "energy hungry" and thus someone to be watched ...

The other methods would be in place. Just think they could do so much more with the Atronach birth sign to make it more interesting to play that just capturing souls and svcking the energy out. It's a bit boring to only have one way (or one place) to recharge your magicka.

It's good the article mentions the fix to the back-peddling exploitation. However, there is another exploitation which has existed in at least the previous two installments and which I have not heard anything about concerning Skyrim just yet.

Namely, the all-too-tempting combat tactic I've had in Oblivion & Morrowind is to jump onto a high place (such as a basic boulder) and pick off the opponents as they keep running around unable to do anything. As a low level character I would defeat very high level monsters this way. Over, and over, and over again. A solution of course is to just not do it, but it's a strong temptation and so it's more ideal to have a combat system which addresses it.

For example, opponents could be better at jumping onto places themselves, and/or they could flee if they detect they are making no progress while their health goes down, and/or they could switch to range weapons. However, the exploitation would remain if any solution still encourages opponents to fight your minions in melee while you remain unharmed. That is, if the player keeps summoning creatures while on a rock (my most common tactic), a solution to this problem should not be fooled by the fact that the opponent is making progress in hacking away your minion and should realize that more minions will just keep coming.

So in answer to the thread's question, if this exploitation is still possible in Skyrim, then there is a danger that the new system will not change my tactic. As a result, just as in the previous two titles, it's the draw of exploration which will keep me playing for a good while, and then I'll stop playing due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay.
However.
That said, it is promising to see some new slants in the recent trailer. Such as fighting airborn dragons, and what appears to be images of the player grabbing opponents (though that might be finishing move rather than a mid-battle move.)

Actually I believe they just cut birthsigns completely. I really hope not though, that's the biggest thing I'm disappointed about so far

They have a bunch of giant creatures, so we will see how far that goes

It won't affect combat for me that much. I think the only thing it will change is that I'll probably aim for more 1vs1 battles instead of running right into a mob.

that is always a smart way to go, the one thing I hated about oblivion was that even if you were in this small squeeze they all could still attack you at once......I hope that isn't the case in this game