Whatever combat system they implement, I would love to see a similar V.A.T.S type system like the one from Fallout 3, complete with gory decapitations and severed limbs in glorious slow motion

I like this idea, it would be nice to see my character actually struggling with a weapon if he wasn't good with it, it would make sense to me.

It would be a good bridge from the Morrowind style of missing and Oblivions always hit style.

If done correctly it could be quite visually appealing aswell.

I agree with all this. Skills just don't feel like they really affect much within the game.

On a side note, I would really like to see multi-hit boxes for 2handed weapons. What I mean is that I want my two handed swing to hit multiple enemies. What's the point of having a big sword if I can't use it to clear a room? Some of you might say that doing this would make friendly fire ridiculously common. My answer to that is, "That makes perfect sense to me." 2-handed weapons weren't meant for precision wielding. They were made longer and heavier to add damage to an attack and to force enemies to back off to give the wielder more room to maneuver, which can help when surrounded.

The way the system was currently set up in Oblivion is ok I guess. I could live without the idea above in Skyrim, really. But it was one of those ideas that I kept thinking about in my head as I played Oblivion. I doubt it'll change though, seeing as it's been like that for all previous games.

Though that makes me wonder, did the shotguns in Fallout 3 have the capability to hit multiple enemies (didn't really use them in that game so I don't know. @_@). If they did, they could probably implement that in Skyrim.

I'll be fine with either of them really, just can't wait till Skyrim is out. I'll probably die when the gameplay vids finally start showing up.

I'm pretty sure they had multiple projectiles; I know that was an option in the G.E.C.K. So that really can't be done that way, as swords don't have bullets. It would be cool, though. That does make the idea of firing multiple arrows look a little more possible, though.

i agree. you should do damage mostly based on your strength, and the skill determines how well you git and such.

Bring back fumbles, misses, and fizzles. And make them fun and varied.

You could even expand on this by making it so those "big and powerful" weapons and armor (such as a daedric longsword) require a certain skill threshold before you can properly weild them. I.E. below skill 75 a player would have a hard time properly using a daedric longsword compaired to a silver one. At skill 10, it would be very inefficent to the point where you would have more damage potentual by using a "lighter" calibur sword.

Same thing for blunt - small axe's or hammers are perfect damage potential for lower/mid levels (and high levels would allow some crazy attack speed) but once you get to a higher level you'll be able to better weild heavy hitter weapons should you choose.

For armors there could be a Rock-Paper-Scissor balancing in effect ala most RTS games. Heavy armor's are great at protecting against blows that can knock you back and stun you, but make things slightly more cumbersome for you (at lower skills, a skill 100 in heavy armor would be like not wearing armor at all as far as movement speed, acrobatics, and weapon attack speed). They could be WEAKER against magic, and small pericing weapons such as daggers (if the NPC has enough skill in that area to deal effective damage). Light armor would defend you less, but be stronger against piercing weapons and magic, less cumbersome, etc.

But anyways... back to my first point in this post: that would effectively remove the need to have auto-leveled loot to your character level and allows stuff like hidden daedric weapons and armors to be around the world without unbalancing the game like in Morrowind. Because the trick is that you can't really (as a character) effectively use top-tier stuff until your skill improves enough to use it. Sure you could equip that sword at level 1, and it would do plenty of damage should it hit properly... but it will be extremely hard and slow to use such a weapon if you have poor skill, to the point that iron swords would have more damage potentual.

OH and this could also be a great system to determining the enemy's level seamlessly - an enemy using high tear weapons and armors will obviously have a lot more skill in using such weapons and armor.