From: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/18/20-best-things-about-skyrim/

Is it just me, or am I the only one concerned by that quote?

For me personally, Oblivion's ranged combat made me less than excited. In fact, it was a pet hate of mine. There was a lot of variety in melee combat - blades, blunts or axes, and sub categories within each weapon class that offered varying reach, damage and speed. Not even taking into account that daedric gear was better than iron.

In the ranged combat, on the other hand, there were ranged spells in the destruction school and there was one type of bow - in that each bow had the same range and redraw time - the only factor that varied was damage, and that is only taking into account daedric gear vs iron gear.

Assuming that the reporter is accurate, and that Bethesda will only offer Bows and Magic as projectile weaponry, it would appear that Bethesda are removing a fair chunk of role playing from the player because any character we create in Skyrim has to use either bows or magic in order to survive dragon encounters. Without using them, that article implies that we have to wait for the dragon to land so that we can scrag it (and seeing as the dragon encounters are unscripted, that could mean that we have numerous battles with dragons where they circle around breathing fire at us and we stare up at them helplessly until inevitable death and reload)

For me what is concerning about that article is that it implies that any character I choose to play will be forced through circumstance to choose between using magic or a bow to provide the necessary ranged attack, and not something that would better fit how I am trying to play them.

Therefore, I personally would like to see more ranged combat incorporated in the vanilla game, or at the very least in DLC. I would prefer that we didn't have to rely on the modding community for this one.

I think I would be happy with either of the two following options:

1. (The realistic one) - that we have a greater range in the types of the traditional bows - Longbows, short bows and re-curve bows - with varying stats for both.
2. That there is a greater range of projectile weaponry which would fit most characters. There is a great deal of variety in projectile weapons, apart from bows, there are also: blowguns, slings, crossbows, and throwing weapons (clubs, axes and daggers are already weapon types from Oblivion, whereas spears are not, so the first three have the greatest chance of actually being included by the devs)

What are other people's views on the subject?

I've included a poll - if you have any suggestions for more options in question 2 please post/pm me. I apologize for the strong representation of throwing weapons - throwing weapons are the most common and the easiest to use of projectile weapons. They are also one of the two weapon types believed to have been invented 5 million years ago and still be in use today, so I believe it is justifed.

:facepalm:

Where do you guys come up with these silly ideas. Do you really think Bethesda would create such a flaw that Melee only characters would be gimped against the primary protagonists in the game? You did watch the initial trailer, right? The one with the guy using only melee to fight the dragon with the exception of one dragon shout.

You know you have dragonshouts right? That's what Todd used in the demo as a melee character. Seemed to work just fine. And archtypes should have some pros and cons when facing dragons; Mages would get absolutely murdered when a dragon comes close, thieves would find their melee not as strong as a warrior's, and warriors would have to rely on using a bow just to bring dragons down and Dragonshouts.

He watched it, but is freaking out man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4G4mcYOXMA

I am for any ranged weapons they want to bring in as long as there are no guns!

I think dlc like this would be great. Weapon packs/armor packs. Things that they wanted to put in the game but didnt have the time or things much of the public wants.

I'm all in favour of more ranged weapons appearing in the game, but not as DLC. That would feel a bit cheap to me. If they intend to include more ranged weapons, such weapons should be in the game upon release or not at all.

The only exception to this would be if they released an expansion pack similar to Shivering Isles, and in that expansion pack came more ranged weapons.

*primary antagonists of the game.

I came up with that silly idea because the initial trailer is very clearly scripted.

Except there is no unique ranged weapon for the melee character (I realise that these are the archetypes the way I see them - not necessarily the way anyone else does)

The mage archetype uses ranged spells, then flicks over to on touch when the enemy gets close. They have the dragon shouts as auxiliary to that.
The stealth archetype opens up fire with a bow from a distance, then switches to a dagger when the enemy gets close. They have the dragon shouts as auxilary to that.
The warrior archetype opens up with a dragon shout and charges towards the enemy waving their sword wildly.

I don't really feel that the dragonshout differentiates the archetype, in the same way that saying that the baseball is different from basketball and soccer because it uses a round ball.


Nice vid.

Course I could just be crazy in having my stance on this topic..

Anyone who likes supertroopers is ok in my book.

I change my vote, hook us up with everything this man said beth :thumbsup:

I guess your main problem to start with is to suggest that we should have to DLC variety in the bows.

I dont want to pay $1.5, which actually ends up being 5 bones cause you can only buy microsoft points in certain intervals, just to shake up my bow.

I swear, whoever came up with the DLC idea is the richest and assholiest person ever associated with video games. Absolutely brilliant. How do you get a generation of gamers that have paid 50 bones for new games their entire lives to start paying 100 bones for the same games? DLC

As for you pokimon geners, i have nothing to say. You're weird

"ball and chain"...do you mean Morning Star? Flail?

There's one major problem with long bows in TES: you have to walk around with an arrow in them and drawn back if you wanted to be ready for an instant shot. There was no way to de-nock the arrows (which was fixed by the mod community, thank god.) So if your index finger got tired, the only way to fix it was to lose you arrow, or dig into the inventory.

The great thing about crossbows, throwing stars, knives and darts in Morrowind was that they were always ready; to fire, just tap your mouse button. No draw time.

If arrows are to be as rare as Bethesda says, this will be a severe handicap for archers. It makes ranged weapons a lot less viable, as you'll be wasting ammo if your finger gets tired. Your only other choice is to risk getting your [censored] handed to you while your character draws back the bow, gets it ready to fire, all while the angry, angry NPC is bearing down on you.

I must say that if Bethesda are only having long bows as ranged weapons, with limited arrows, it sound like it'll be much harder to play a pure archer.

I lost probably 10 arrows to what youre talking about

Just fire at the ground and then pick it up.

But yeah, i agree, it was stupid. I would be willing to bet a couple bones, or clams, or whatever you call them that they will attempt a fix for that.

I would like to throw rocks.

Yup rocks.

For distracting while sneaking. I would love this.

To troll wildlife. To upset people and get them to attack me. And to be a jerk to the little immortals running around. :wink_smile:

Nope I mean http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolas or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surujin

The military application was based off an idea from an RTS game called Praetorians, where your melee troops have a ranged attack they use as they approach the enemy. The barbarian faction's warriors appear to throw two rocks connected by a chain that wrap around the feet of the enemy, thus slowing them down and tripping them up.

Basically the same kind of concept as a roman gladiator's net - immobilize your foe so that they can't fight you or run away

i would love to have other alternatives to just the bow... but only if the other projectile weapons don't act like an arrow shot from a bow. like if a throwing spear hits a target, as opposed to an arrow hitting said target.

Agreed. I personally would like to see it in the game, full stop. I think there is a distinct possibility (even probability) that it would not be in Vanilla game, however, I personally see it as a feature that did need to be improved from Oblivion. Seeing as DLC is superfluous to the gaming experience (as it did not come with vanilla), and Todd believes that, for example, crossbows are superfluous, I see no reason why they couldn't be best included as DLC, rather than letting modders without access to resources create the animations necessary to implement these in the game (and cutting PS3/Xbox-360 players off from it completely)



Agreed. I think it should be in vanilla. To be honest, I would prefer to pay $5 for something that should have been in the game to begin with (greater variety in projectile weaponry) rather than spending $60 to have my warrior stuck with a long bow the entire game. (or happily using a short bow, and have my dedicated archer stuck with the short bow)

Please no new weapon trough DLC's

I like your ranged weapon ideas but I really like the idea of throwing spears/pilums/etc.

If they were included I would probably try an Imperial for the first time and play as an ancient Roman.

Thanks That's how I imagine it too.

imo, if there would ever be the possibility of throwing spears, regular spears would be needed first

Not according to New Vegas!

Id only expect new weapons in the form of fallout DLC. ie new weapons added in with new enemies, new land, new quests etc. i would not like to see a weapon DLC pack that has only weapons.

I know, that svcked, lol. Well i never used a spear-flinging tribal or Legion character so it didn't affect me too much

That doesn't work in Morrowind - as soon as it's shot, it's gone. But it was better in Oblivion, but still not properly done. Either Bethesda need the to make the draw action for the bow fast - really, really fast - have a de-nock button, or bring back crossbows and thrown weapons.

Fast animation's probably not gonna happen, as the trend is to make animation that *looks* good - a long, slow, dramatic pull back of the bowstring - rather than plays good (firing the weapon exactly when the player wants to fire it.) Crossbows probably aren't going to happen, either. De-nocking seems like the only likely solution, and if the modders have implemented it for both Oblivion and Morrowind, I think Bethesda would be fools not to implement it in vanilla Skyrim.