» Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:11 pm "First-person melee combat can't be done well."
Whenever improving combat in TES is discussed, this statement is inevitably uttered. And it's true, there are very few cases of even decent first-person melee in games, with games like Riddike: Escape from Butcher Bay and Dead Island often emerging as passable, but still flawed examples.
With the inclusion of shield-bashing in vanilla Skyrim, and numerous mods adding everything from crude dodges and somersaults to timing-based parries and ripostes, I've compiled a short list of well-thought-out and relatively simple features that could easily rectify the problems many players have with TES combat.
1. Lock-on:
Activating an enemy in combat (pressing "E" in the PC version, same as talking with an NPC) will lock your camera onto them, allowing you to strafe around them and avoid becoming disoriented. Switching targets is as easy as hitting the activate key again and looking at someone else. This ensures that the player will never lose track of foes while performing advanced maneuvers.
2. Dodging:
Double-tapping a direction and the jump key will result in a quick dodge that varies based on certain mutually-exclusive perks. All dodges can only be performed while locked-on, and none involve tumbles or rolls that could disorient the player. These perks, combined with lock-on, will make melee combat with groups and high-damage bosses far less frustrating, as player will ow have an option beyond tanking every hit and spamming potions.
Light Armor perk allows for a very quick slide that consumes stamina and can cover a good distance almost instantly.
Heavy Armor perk is a short-range lunge that consumes stamina and can stagger enemies, making it more advantageous to dodge towards foes than away from them.
Alteration Perk is a short-warp that consumes magicka and can allow the player to teleport through enemies to get at their backs.
Illusion Perk makes the player invisible for a moment while creating an instant afterimage instead of a directional dodge.
With the exception of certain boss characters, these dodges must remain exclusive to the player to avoid psychic enemies that can predict and dodge your attacks unfairly.
3. Critical Hits and Finishers:
A collection of critical hit options allows the player to incorporate a wider number of attack options than spamming their default swings. Incorporating criticals also makes dispatching high-health enemies an exercise in precision and strategy rather than a yawn-inducing test of patience.
Backstabs- Slashes to an enemy's back deal extra damage based on weapon damage + Sneak skill.
Guard Breaks- When you stagger an enemy through shield bashing/knocking back their shield, your next hit will always be a critical.
Parries & Ripostes- If you block an enemy's attack the instant before it hits you, the enemy will recoil and become open to a critical power attack.
Execution- Stagger an enemy with low health while locked-on and hold the attack key to execute them. This results in one of many Skyrim-style finishers that only activate when the player wants them to.
4. Drinking Potions and Eating Food:
Both drinking potions and eating food now involves a short animation in which the player raises the item to their mouth. This takes only a second, but prevents the player from attacking, blocking, dodging or drinking/eating another consumable before the animation is complete. This means that using that one potion of ultimate healing you've been hanging on to is more viable, since you can no longer chug 18 potions of minor healing in a menu. This should also make restoration and alchemy more appealing, as players will seek to create stronger potions or avoid them altogether in favor of quick restoration spells that can be more easily incorporated into combat.
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The implications for these relatively simple changes are quite wide-reaching, and become even more exciting when you consider cross-class applications, such as a mage-rouge hybrid who locks-on and warps to enemies' backs for critical hits.
With these new mechanics implemented, wonky hitboxes and a lack of weightiness would be the only issues left for Bethesda to iron-out in TES combat and, with a bit of effort on that front, we could see TES become one of the few games out there to do 1st-person melee combat well. All of these changes could even likely be modded into Skyrim with a bit of patience, as they mostly use elements already present in the game, so there's no reason why we couldn't see this in future Bethesda games at launch.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
Note: This is not a "What I want from combat in TES VI" thread, but a general discussion of realistic ways combat could be improved in the TES series based on framework that is already present in Skyrim. Suggestions for complete overhauls specific to the next game in the series belong in the general TES VI ideas thread.
