Did you even read that?

And where did I say that this is about TES V? How do you get that idea? As I've repeatedly mentioned now, these are thoughts on close combat, not suggestions for TES V.
And where did I say that I'm aiming for "extremely realistic"? My goal is to have a combat system that features nearly every action you can do in real-life combat, not because I want it realistic, but because it's fun to have a lot of options. My other goal is to use every character stat that affects a combat situation, so that every small change to your character affects your experience a little bit. Not because it's realistic (the whole aspect of "attributes" isn't very realistic anyway), but because it's fun to customize your character, and be rewarded for it. That's the role-playing aspect of the combat system - it could be neglected, but we're talking about an RPG, so why should we neglect that part?

I'm sorry that I don't seem to have such blind faith in Bethesda's abilities as you seem to have, but (as I said in the quoted part of my last post), I did not think they succeeded in making "whatever is the most fun to do". It was not fun for me to see that raising Agility for a fighter has next to no impact, or that weapons always do the same damage as long as you didn't miss your opponent.

What I didn't get is whether you think this proposed system would be no fun or too complicated for the player or whatever you think is the problem with it. Right now it seems that you just, for no reason, want to badmouth any effort of portraying one's own ideas for aspects of the games, simply because they're not Bethesda's ideas. So it would be good if you could be more specific there.

Oh, they listen... they may royally screw up things in an attempt to fix them, but they do listen.

The Compass? Result of people complaining about getting lost.

Fast Travel? Result of people complaining about how long walking took.

Set Damage Amount? Result of people complaining about swords passing through enemies.

Ownable Homes? Result of people complaining about having to kill people to get a decent house.

The list goes on, but it just goes to show that they do read the forums to see what people did and did not like so if we do not air grievances, they won't know what to change.

Oh, lol, so, we are just talking about hand to hand combat for the sake of it? Has nothing to do with TES:V, of future games? I see. That's relevant bro.


I know they listen, but they do not listen to fans when it comes to completely revamping game mechanics. That's kind of a much larger deal than adding a game compass or fast travel.
I get what you're saying, but changing major game mechanics isn't something they look for the community for. That's what they have these things called experts with jobs for.

The way i see it damage dealt should be pretty simple. First you have the weapon which deals damage based on two things, force and sharpness, force should be dependent mostly on strength attribute with some additional based on weapon skill, sharpness should absolutely NOT depend on anything other than the quality and condition of the weapon used. Secondly you have the armor, I think that weapon skill should mainly be focused on working against armor for finding weak points, separate hit boxes with different armor ratings would be helpful so that one can choose whether to aim for arms chest or whatever depending on how well protected they are, blades should obviously be less effective against armor since they lack the force of a blunt weapon and rely on chopping up flesh. There should be odds based on weapon skill and armor rating as to whether and to what degree the armor is penetrated and the weapon sharpness damage should only apply if it is. on the other hand if you get a good hit on an unarmed opponent with a good blade, unless they have great constitution, they ought to bleed out within a minute or two.

What i'd most like to see would be the differently armored hit boxes. A mage conjuring up a daedric helm shouldn't change what happens when i slice him across the chest. that and player skill affecting weapon damage. it should affect how much damage you can get out of it but doesn't change the weapon.

Betrayer of Humanity - We're talking about combat because this is the General Discussions forum. What's wrong with you? :huh:

Of course, the topics are relevant to the next title in the series, but they're also relevant to the ones that are already out there. I actually started writing this because I wanted to lay a foundation for any argument whether one type of combat system is more RPGish or complex than another. Once TES V comes out, we can look at its combat system and say "hey, it has this and this and this implemented, but not this and this, so there's still room for improvement". It is an attempt to create a combat system that maximizes its RPG aspect, its fun aspect, its complexity and its simplicity. Which is why I'm also asking for feedback on this, because I'm pretty sure there's still enough that I didn't consider (as seen with the grabbing/pushing mentioned by Nightbeat).
The few suggestions concerning combat controls are in here because we need to keep them in mind, and cannot simply say "I want that, and that, and that, and that, and that!" Maybe if we move on to next-gen controls where you control your character with thoughts, that will be possible, but as long as we have to use keyboards and clumsy hands, this is a limitation that needs to be considered.

I've always thought a system like this would work.

I'm using Oblivion's system as the base in this example, only switching up some things.

Get rid of power attacks that were used in Oblivion. Change it back to Morrowind's system. Pulling the weapon back more will do more damage. Now let's say that when you fully pull the weapon back and release, you will do a "Power Attack." No special timing for it, no special animation, I'm just labeling these attacks as such so you can understand my next point.
The blocking system in Oblivion wasn't bad, but it was always, hack, slash, hack, slash, block, rinse, and repeat. Let's make it so you can't hold down the block button. In Oblivion, if someone did attack when you blocked, they were dazed for a second, and sometimes you were dazed for a second. Change it to 50% chance of enemy being dazed, 25% chance of you being dazed, and 20% chance of you lowering your shield. So say for example, when someone is swinging a dagger very quickly at you and you put up your shield, there are many different outcomes that can occur:
-You block the attack, the enemy is dazed, you can keep your shield up for the next attack
-You block the attack, the enemy is not dazed and continues to swing, you keep your shield up for a second
-The enemy bashes your shield out of the way, you can't keep your shield up for a second
-The enemy bashes your shield out of the way, you can't keep your shield up for a second, and the enemy is dazed
-The enemy bashes your shield out of the way, and you are dazed
-The enemy bashes your shield out of the way, you are both dazed

It's a possibility that weapon skills or type of weapon themselves (claymore or dagger) could affect the chances of the outcome.
Now onto what I re-labeled as, "Power Attacks." When you draw your weapon back fully, there is a greater chance of dazing the enemy and a greater chance of him/her lowering their shield.

I think something like that would make it less "hack slash block hack slash" and institute more strategic gameplay and player skill.

God man, I'm not the only one who loved Mount and Blade!!!!

Besides, the player doesn't need skill to succeed in Mount and Blade. I svcked at it at first, but through caution and training my character, I was able to level up to the point were I could contend in just about any fight.

i think that there should be different types of combat also.
to name two,
Power & Finesse.

The thing that people seem to keep forgetting when they keep coming up with these super-complicated "realistic" or "deep" mechanics is that the more crap you have to take into account whenever trying to work a system the more crap that can go wrong and the more crap that can turn the players away. I mean, look at what Red Eye's doing with his ES RPG system down in the fan works section; it follows Morrowind's mechanics pretty much down to the decimal, which sounds fine and dandy on the surface, but in doing so it creates so much work and recordkeeping that it crowds out any sembelance of fun. There's a reason KISS is so often a staple commandment of any endeavour.

So... stagnation in quality is the better solution?

Besides, these are definitely not super-complicated or "deep" mechanics. :huh:

I'm not familiar with Red Eyes system but I can agree with the sentiment to keep the things simple. It's not stagnation though as there is allot to improve about Oblivions combat system.

When it comes to the mechanics, personally I like the system used in Mount & Blade. Attacks can come from three directions, you can either parry in three directions or block all of them with a shield. Some weapons are slow, some are fast, so you have to time your attacks to land at the right moment.
This is a very effective system because of it's apparent simplicity. Behind the screens the hit boxes grow as your weapon skills grows, weapons move a bit faster, you get a bit through and deal more damage as your stats increase. Everything to make the make easier as the character skills go up. What happens behind the screens is fairly complicated but it's also completely opaque to the player.
I think this is how it should be. Putting the player on top of a complex system without bothering him with that complexity makes the game a good 'simulation'. It puts the player in a world and shows him the effects of his actions in this world.

The looks of Oblivions combat system are still bad as they've been in the whole series. There are whole books written about what do when facing some one with a sword - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Talhoffer comes to mind - and no one ever stands opposite to some while taking swipes at each other. Though putting such realism in a game might be bit too much. Some Jedi games however did have a nice few features such as bindings and nice visceral finishings. But this doesn't really work on monsters and anything else that isn't human.
Then again, I'd use a spear when facing something like an Ogrim or Troll. Point it in the beasts directions while it charges at you and let it impale itself.

What I miss most though is anything that resembles unarmed combat. My first character was a Khajiit Thief-something without armour and I mostly used the jumping and rolling and dodging to stay out of range. It works nice, except for the short dagger and the slow bow.
So if I couldn't get the first drop by killing some thing at range I would be stuck either back-pedalling with the bow or trying to get some stabs in between strikes. I'd really like to be able to side step an attack without having to jump back all the way out of range. It's really easy to step in and push an arm away.
But then again this is involves some complex interaction between people which are hard to model.

Well, when it commes to combat I am a conservative. I do not think that Morrowind?s comabt was perfect and I think that Oblivion?s was far far worse, but still, I?m quite opposed to great changes. Mostly because I belive that Beth can learn from their mistakes and it is easier to polish an existig model then making a new one. But then again you can wish for atotally new think to happen. I think I coud live with what you suggested, even though I?m more of a dice-roll person, but there is one thing I think you might recocider. If I understand it right, in your system, the damage dealt with a weapon depends only on strength frm all the attributes. I think that with some weapons, like daggers, short swords, rapiers and so on agility and speed are far more important. I think it woud be nice if I did not have to force my assassin to be strong to be effective with daggers, agility should supplement strength here.

And in a more general note:
We are speaking here about game mechanics. The game is unrealistic. Its very basic idea of a sole hero defeatig armies is unrealistic. The fact that whatever class you choose can accomplish the same thing is unrealsitic, therefore the game mechanics, includng combat MUST BE UNREALISTIC to a degree. It shouldnot bemore unrealistic then necessary, but a certain ammount of realism must be sacrificed to roleplayability. Here I?m speaking especially about those ideas that blades should not be efficient against plate armour and so on. Yes, it migh be realistic, but it would also limit the player choices terribly. Now, imagine that such system worked in Oblivion. You played a thief, using blades and light armour and you would come across a ruin filled with marauders. All of them in heavy armours. You woud have no chance whasoever to urvive taht dungeon, because your weapons would have no effect on them. Does that sound fun?

In RPGs you should be able to play as many different classes and all of them should be capable to achieve the same goal, by different means, of course, but the same goal, nonetheless. If you make some choices far superior to others, you might bemakin things more realistic, but you are also ruining RPG features for thsoe who do not wish to play a waking tin can with a giant hammer.

so as a thief one would need to make use of sneak attack in order to bypass the armor, as well as have a high enough weapon skill to be able to find the weak points and hit them. that could be easier to do with daggers than with a longsword as their attacks can be more precise. thus for a low strength character using a dagger would be far more effective on armored characters than a mace which you could barely swing, provided of course you have some reasonable level of skill with it and the opponent doesn't have mail under the plate, which i doubt many marauders would be able to afford. and i do think there should be high level enemies that take more than just running up to them and swinging your weapon to kill them unless you are extremely powerful as well

and the mechanics i'm talking about really aren't very complicated.

Using a sneak attack is a metter of a quite high sneak skill and you yourself are saying that a thief would need a high skill with his dagger to do damage. But when you start a game, you do not have a high skill and you gain a skill mostly by using it. Does that mean that as a thief I have to wait half the game to be able to confront a marauder? What to do in the meanwhile? Killing mudcrabs? Sure, each fighting style requires (or in an RPG should require) the player to think and rushing into battle without thoughts should be a very bad idea. I never said I wanted anything remotely resembling this. But the tactics should not consists of decisions like: "I cannot harm this guy because I do not use maces, so I have level some more 20 levels elsewhere and then maybe I can have a chance to kill him." This may work for bosses, but based on the fact that they are bosses and not on the fact that they use heavy armour and souch tactic then should be mandatory to any class you choosegive or takesome few levels needed). I'd say that something is very very wrong in a setting where a warrior in heavy armour and with a huge warhammer can run into almost any battle, survive and kill whatever foe, while a thief in a leather armour with a dirk at the same level has to run away and gain more experience elswehere to achieve the same thing.

Najaknevrec - Isn't speed the advantage of a dagger, and not a prerequisite? I don't know... I'd imagine if you slice someone's face with a dagger, you'll do more damage if you have a high Strength.
But if we compare a dagger to a sword, we find these differences:
- Since it is so short, you can handle it more intuitively and more precise than a sword.
- It is faster, which allows you to make moves that can't be parried
So... that sounds like we might not even need the additional damage we could get from having a high Strength. The precision basically means that we can aim better, which allows us to hurt the enemy at his most vulnerable parts. And in many cases, he won't even be able to parry the attack because we're too fast for him. Remember that in this combat system, I try to make avoiding damage more important, and sustaining damage more lethal.

The precision would manifest itself in your chance of hitting your opponent, and maybe in a higher chance for critical strikes. Weapon speed and Agility are already considered to be the main factors in the calculation for your attack's speed, so there you'd have your Agility dependency.

"Precision" wouldn't be another stat for weapons in this case, but rather something that is fixed for every type of weapon. Daggers and Shortswords would have a high precision, and Blunt Weapons too, I guess (though not as high as Daggers)... after all, they hit a larger area and are more likely to hit a vulnerable part, which would compensate their low speed to some extent.

it sounds to me as though you want a thief class to be able to be played in the exact same manner as a warrior class. Why would a thief in leather armor be able to run into battle in the same way as a warrior could? A thief in leather armor should be able to avoid most attacks of an enemy by dodging in and out of distance, and striking more precisely. I don't particularly like all play styles blurring into one, i'd rather have advantages and disadvantages to each. you could say it takes away from the fun of the thief to be unable to do the face to face combat, but i say it takes away from the distinctiveness of the thief class to allow such behavior to be successful.

the way i would have it is that if a warrior faced a marauder of the same level he should be able to duke it out toe, to toe with him and be able to come out on top as often as not. a thief in leather armor shouldn't be able to do so. he should need to be more crafty to get the win. either by opening with a sneak attack or using he greater maneuverability to his advantage. On the other hand when facing a lightly armored bandit a warrior with a giant hammer and mail shouldn't be able to keep up with him, will have difficulty connecting with the giant warhammer, and will need to be careful that he doesn't get behind him and past his defenses.

I know it's been said that realism in games does not necessarily translate into fun. But I don't think combat is one of those things, I think realistic combat could be more fun than traditional or turn-based combat.

In real life, how do sword fights work? The master swordsman will almost always beat the amateur, but why? Can he take more hits in a hack and slash competition? Does he get better dice rolls and lands more hits? No, most of the time, the winner of the competition will be the person who is able to smack his opponent first. The master will always beat the amateur, not because he can absorb getting stabbed eleven times, but because he is able to read the amateur, and predict and react to his attacks. He can dodge or parry. The amateur will always lose to the master, because the master's attacks are sudden, and the amateur isn't skilled at parrying or dodging away from attacks.
And if the master does get hit in the face, he will die, regardless of whether the amateur or another master was the one hitting him. Damage is decided by one's strength and the quality of the material of the sword, rather than technique. The technique is used to actually land the hit.

Now to apply that to a video game.

Hitpoints would be reduced to quite a low amount. Some characters really could base their combat strategies on being able to take more hits, but even the toughest Orc would be killed by two or three hard chops in the stomach. Armor would reduce damage greatly, but the idea of combat would be to hit unprotected parts, rather than hits the armor until it breaks. There would be two damage types, and each armor would be weak to protect against one, but effective against the other. Heavy Armor would be resistant to sharp attacks, like a slash from a dagger, but would not be very resistant to crushing attacks such as a chop from a warhammer. And the opposite applies to Light Armor. Light Armor would have a lower overall damage resistance, because of the increased mobilty, which could help with dodging.
Also, the armor would not block a percentage of the damage, they would block a certain chunk of it. A weak hit would not even get through, while a strong hit would partially get through. If the character's damage resistance was 10, and you were hit by an attack dealing 5 damage, you would receive 0 damage. If you were hit by an attack dealing 20 damage, you would receive 10 damage.

Damage itself would be mainly governed by strength. But damage would be subject to fatigue.

Fatigue would play a far greater role in this combat than the last, because health is no longer so relevant, and Endurance has to stay useful. When your fatigue gets low, your swings would come at a much slower rate, you would dodge and parry slower, and you would deal a lot less damage. This opens up a whole new style of fighters, who can dodge away until their opponent tires while they reserve their own fatigue, and then they have an easy kill.

Now for Combat itself.
Combat would be controlled by the player, in that the player will aim* his attacks, and decide when, how**, and how powerful*** his attacks are delivered. The character skill would simply decide how well these actions are performed.
*The player uses a crosshair to aim his attacks. He can aim for the Head, Left/Right Arm, Body, Left/Right Leg. The character swings his sword, and there is essentially a dice roll to see how close the character comes to hitting the target that the player set for him. At a low skill, their would essentially be a large, invisible reticle around the crosshair, in which the character could hit anything. As the the skill increases, the invisible reticle (which is representing the margin of error) shrinks, and the character's attacks become more accurate to where the player is aiming.
**Moving to the right as you attack will produce a horizontal slash from right to left, and right to left, alternately. Moving to the left as you attack will produce a horizontal slash from left to right, and right to left, alternately.
Moving backwards will produce a stab or thrust. Moving forward will create an overhead chop. If you don't move in any direction, you will produce one of the afforementioned attacks randomly.
The character doesn't literally have to be moving in those directions, the player must simply move the arrow key or joystick in that direction as they release of the click of the mouse or they release the trigger.
***The longer you hold the attack button, the more powerful your attack will be, to a certain extent. A quick click will produce a weak attack, an accented sort of click will produce a medium-powered attack, and a hold will produce a high powered attack. Note that you have to only point in a certain direction for the release of the attack button, so this allows for a strong attack on any of the attack moves. Also, you don't have to hold the button for a longer period of time to produce a maximum power attack with a higher strength. A weak attack would be stronger than the previous weak attack, and the strong attack would be stronger than the previous strong attack, with a higher strength.

Regarding defensive manoeuvres:
The player decides when to block and dodge. The character skill decides how long you can hold the block button* for, how long the critical block** period is, and how fast and suddenly your are able to dodge*** out of the way, as well as how long the critical dodge**** period is.
*The player decides when the character will block. You cannot hold the block button indefinitely. A successful block avoids all damage, but reduces some fatigue. At a low skill, you can block for about a second, so you have to time your blocks with more precision, and it requires more fatigue. As the character skill gets better, you are able to block for longer periods of time, making it harder for your opponent to find an opening, as well as the player doesn't have to time his blocks so precisely, and it requires less fatigue. You cannot rapidly block, release, block, release, effectively giving you a constant block. After each block, there would be a moment where you cannot block again. After you block an attack, your opponent does not become flustered, as in Oblivion. He can keep attacking rapidly, forcing you to defend, although he can't attack more rapidly than you are able to block. After 5 or so attacks, your opponent's fatigue would be quite low, causing his attacks to come slower and farther apart. This would be your opportunity to counter and land your own hits, or at least get on offence, because you would still be relatively fresh. Successful blocks use less fatigue than attacks.
Also, all blocks would have a certain animation, depending on what kind of attack your opponent uses.
**A critical block occurs on the whims of a dice-roll. At low level skill, the chances of this happening are virtually non-existant, but as you get a higher skill, the more often a critical block is performed, although it is a decently rare event. A successful critical block effectively flusters your opponent for a half-second to a second, as in Oblivion but to a lesser extent. This would give you an opportunity to perform a counter attack.
***The player decides when to dodge. This is performed by holding down the block button and moving in a direction. This simply moves your character in that direction suddenly and slightly, with a special animation, rather than the backflips in Oblivion that take you completely out of the combat. A successful dodge avoids all damage and minimally reduces your fatigue, and gives you a slight window of opportunity to counter. At a low skill, dodging would be less sudden, forcing the player to anticipate his opponent's attacks a little more, and it would require more fatigue, and it would give a very slightt window of opportunity. At a higher skill, the character reacts faster and uses less fatigue, and it gives a longer window of opportunity to counter. Dodge effectiveness would be partially subject to your equipped encumbrance. Dodging in heavier armor would reduce the window of opporunity to counter and require more fatigue. The lighter the armor, the easier it is to counter and the less fatigue is used.
****A critical dodge occurs on the whims of a dice-roll. At low level skill, the chances of this happening are virtually non-existant, but as you get a higher skill, the more often a critical dodge is performed, although it is a rather rare event. When a critical dodge occurs, the opponent completely overbalances, and is vulnerable for a second or two, which is all a competent fighter needs to finish him. This would occur less often than the critical block.

So instead of the Morrowind system, where you miss your opponent ten times, and then you hit your opponent 10 times, then he dies, in this system your opponent dodges ten times, he blocks ten times, then he gets hit 1 or 2 times, then he dies. Same effect, but using animations to explain the sword passing through someone, or to explain why everything has the health of a demigod.

I rushed through typing this, so if something was unclear, or I missed something entirely, please ask.

I guess you could say the same thing about strength as well. In my suggestions, I do not aim for realism as that is not all that important for me, but rather for ballanced play and role play some times in spite of realism. So my point here is more that I do not want to be forced to build up strenght to be effective in combat if I choose to play an agile rogue. Nevertheless, here it also makes sense to me that while using a sharp light object like a dagger, your speed is more vital then strenght. Think about a cobra who wants to bite an elephant. Cobra does not have nearly enought strength to penetrate the thick skin of an elephant. The reason why a cobra can get through the skin is its speed. It thrusts with its fangs so fast that the fangs gain enough momentum to get through, but physicly the snake is not strong enough to penetrate without speed.



No, not really. I think that the various fighting styles should remain distinct and separate. What I also want, however, is that they are ballanced. Choosing a specialisation should not be an additional difficulty slider. Or in other words, you should be able to get to the same point although using different paths. At level 10 you should be able to clean a dungeon with comaprable difficulty no metter if you are a thief, wizard or worrior. Of course you would not fight your way the smae way, but the result should be the same. Sorry if I was unclear about this.