Bethesda has shown and given a little bit of details and visuals on the melee combat for Skyrim. First ill point out some of the major points I saw:

- Just about all of the 20 some article reviews of the demo said the melee combat was pretty physical, visceral.
- The Invisible walls said that the melee combat was iffy and needed some work.
- In the gameplay trailer, the blood from the victim ended up spraying in mid-air, not looking very convincing. http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/Skyrim/Skryim-Trailer-anolysis-16-Dual-Wield.jpg
-movements from the NPCs made it seem more combat-like.

I think that the actual players and npcs have the melee combat down in movement, but i think i am picking up a theme of maybe the weapons arent hitting close enough, or arent causing enough of an impact when they hit? (even though the one scene wit hthe Draugr getting his skull bashed in seemed badass).

The whole point of this poll is that Im not quite sure what i think of the combat, So please add WHY you chose your poll answer!

I don't think we've seen enough combat to come to a conclusion. Maybe if they release a short video of your typical melee battle with say, a bandit, will we be able to draw conclusions.

I haven't seen even 20 seconds of it. If I had 20 seconds of pure combat, I could say what I thought of it.

I cannot vote on this until I see more video footage of actual combat without the use of cinematics and polishing. No camera tricks, so far that is all we have seen with aside the few snippets of spell casting and the like. Sorry I would love to comment and provide for your post but all we have to go by is what other journalists have stated while watching the demo, like the new invisible walls video. But even then it is still too early to tell. Just too early.

I've said it seems pretty good on the exceptionally limited information we have. Obviously it needs some touching up.


My biggest concern is the whole timed blocking thing. While I feel it's meant to add pace and break away from the block -> slash -> blcok -> slash -> block nature of sword and shield combat, to make it faster and more furious. Shield combat isn't always like that. A shield isn't just some weird shaped parrying device, it's also a guard, you do hold it up to create a barrier between the enemy and yourself, taking oppurtunities to attack.

However, I do not really know what the blocking will be like per se, so I'll have to wait and see.

Yeah i figured. But im also glad to see that people arent entirely sold on it, as im not and im pretty unsure about what ive seen so far. The hournalists who seemed to praise it all have the same worded, brainwashed kinda comment. And the very few who critiqued it sounded a little more believable.

Not enough details provided, but what were given don't impress me as unique or special. Pretty normal.

it looks pretty great in my opinion shame about no argonians being shown though was really hoping to see one after they released a pic of orcs and khajiit

The thing with the blocking in OB you could just hold up the shield and the npc could not hit you, they would just attack your shield, instead of aiming somewhere else. Deadly Relex mod, made it so the longer you held up you shield the less effective your block would be. While there are some situations like a dragon breathing fire at you, or archers shoots arrows at you, were I would think just hold you shield up in front of you makes senses, overall for gameplay reasons I think it will make for much better combat having to press the block button while they attack instead of just holding it down.

I can agree with this, It will add improvisation to combat, and a lot more moving around. I remmember in OB i would just stand in one place pretty much while i fought. I think my main concern is just wanting the combat to really jump from OB and be a lot more physical.

I can definitely agree with that, it just seems like it's going to be a shame that there is apparently no common ground. For instance, you can hold your shield up for a limited amount of time before bring it back down, and your opponents can move around you e.t.c. to get a hit in.

Perhaps my solution wouldn't work, but like I said -- it seems a shame.

I'm just wondering how I'm going to bock anything if I don't have a shield. Todd said you hold the left trigger to block if you've got a shield in the left hand. Say I've got a sword and staff, can I catch a blade on one or do I need to just block it with my face?

I'm happy with the dragon fight and the finishing moves but that one scene with the guy dual wielding a long sword and a dagger against the grey haired guy with the shield was absolutely horrendous. I wish the blood decals weren't triggered based solely on damage because i hate bleeding armor. at least it will look better in first person and that is how i play but still, i wish we had locational damage.

Amen brother, thats exactly what i thought about that part of the trailer. Locational, and i wish it would stick on the actual person. If you saw, it floated in midair after he moved back (the blood spurt)