So I know that these forums seem to be abuzz with complaints for the game right now (some justified, some not, and most entirely up to opinion) and that what I'm going to say has probably already been said, but I couldn't find any threads about it in the first few pages so I figured it can't hurt to throw out my opinions on the matter and hopefully strike up a discussion about this.

I've had the luxury of being able to play Skyrim pretty much all day for the last few days on account of having my wisdom teeth taken out (I suppose that's the upside to getting them out only a week before Thanksgiving) and thus have had ample opportunity to experience, get frustrated by, and think of solutions for a number of weak points in Skyrim's combat system, and just wanted to run these past the rest of the ES forums to see what others thought.

While there are a number of things I could talk about in the OP, I decided to just focus on this one, as it's been the cause of the greatest deal of frustration for me.

I elaborated a great deal in this, so bear with me.

The situation:

I was fighting a dragon with my sword and shield warrior, I had run out of health potions and the two of us were both low on health. I could block his standard melee attack and recieve minimal damage (<10), and proceed to bash him and allow an opening long enough for me to strike him 4 times and have my shield up with more than enough time to block his next attack, ready to repeat the process. This worked fine until one time I had only just finished my third attack when suddenly my character froze, the camera went to third person, and I watched the dragon bite down on my face and kill me with a cinematic finisher. I had a good third of my health left, which would have been more than enough to survive multiple blocked attacks from him.

Oh well, whatever, I reloaded and tried again. Same thing happened. I was able to squeeze in 4 attacks and block his next attack every time without fail up until he reduced me down to that same health number, and just like last time, after my third attack my character is frozen in third person and I get eaten.

I had no more potions, no terrain to hide behind and heal, no means of escape, and no other alternatives. I eventually had to lower the difficulty to finish him off all because of the stupid cinematic finishing move.

The problem:

Cinematic finishers, from what I've been able to obtain, are activated when the game runs a check to see if the attack that the player or NPC is going to make will reduce their target to 0 health and it turns up positive. So if a dragon were to do 100 damage (after taking damage migitation into account) and the player had 100 health or less, a cinematic finisher is activated.

This check is made at the very instant the attack is begun, rather than at the point the attack makes contact. There's a good second or more inbetween when the dragon begins rearing his head back at the beginning of his attack animation and when he lunges foreward and snaps at the player.

The problem with this is that there are any number of things that could occur between the time the attack animation is begun and the time the attack makes contact with the player. They could raise their shield to block the attack or shield bash, they could be already halfway through an attack of their own that would stagger or even kill the target, they could pause the game and drink health potions if they had them, they could cast a ward, heal, or even run behind cover or out of range.

But none of that can happen because the player has no control over the cinematic deaths other than to have more health than what is required for the enemy to initiate one at all times, and on harder difficulties or with characters who don't have high health and armor, that threshold could even be the entirety of their health bar. Since tt freezes your character, puts you and the enemy in a fixed animation, and you can do nothing but sit there and watch as they do terrible, terrible things to your helpless character's body, these cinematic deaths usually feel more like an immature Dungeon Master in D&D saying "Haha, you're dead! I beat you!" rather than a cool death animation that takes the sting off of dying a bit, which I was under the impression of why they were allowed against the player in the first place.

The solution:

This is incredibly simple and honestly I'm surprised that this wasn't the way that it was done the first time around. Simply have the check for the cinematic death occur after the character has been officially reduced to 0 health. Normally, when you die without a cinematic death, you enter third person and watch as your character's ragdoll falls to the ground. In the event that a cinematic death should occur, simply trigger the cinematic death rather than standard ragdoll physics for your character's corpse.

I'm also all for an option to toggle them on and off, as many players have said they're sick of them, and I'm perfectly ok with that, too, but I'd like to be able to experience the cinematic deaths without having to deal with the frustrating aspects of them, and what I proposed would be a very solid solution to that I think.

Eager to hear everyone else's thoughts on the matter.

Holy post! :ahhh:

That annoyed me as well and only with dragons. Once a Forsworn was about to hit me (I planned on freezing him) then it activates the cinematic and I have my head get chopped off. This was the very first attack of the encounter and I had full health.

Yea, this is quite a problem. and sometimes i dont even know if it works properly; Once this guy was hitting me for about 1/4 or so of my total hp (im a mage) with each hit,and abruptly, when im still at about 4/5 hp, he does a finisher and im dead <_< even though he could not have killed me with that attack. Which is kinda weird -.- Like you're there feeling safe and suddenly *finisher* *die*

Especially the dragon finisher pfft.

Agreed. Finishers give neither the player or the npc any chance to react to attacks.

Holy long post batman, that's a long post!

Honestly I have only been 'finishered' once, and I had like 5/200 health left. And I rarely do finishers, but I find that they add pizaz to the game. Also, you can only do a finishing move on the last enemy in the combat group (as far as I have experienced) so other combatants around you are never an issue.

I was led to believe that finishers were triggered by the player. I was pretty bummed when I learned I had no control over when they happened.

A really well thought out post, OP. I hope a change like this can be implemented via mod or patch.

Have you considered not standing in front of the dragon's mouth when low on hp

It has teleported me to the front of the dragon and activated the cinematic (I had 3/5 hp) when I was attacking it between the leg and wing.

it really takes the fun out of a stealthy dodgy character when any random hit at full health could be an unavoidable insta-death. i really dont know what they were thinking with this; flashy death animations that give the player zero of a chance of surviving an otherwise easily avoided attack? what is this, demons souls?

they have it checked before the attack because it would look funny for you to chop at someone then jarringly cut away to the finisher animation...completely at the expense of practicality, but then again it probably never crossed their minds that the flashy and obtrusive finishers might interfere with the more practical side of combat, just like it never crossed their minds that a birds eye view of cloudy mountains makes a poor map.

they put flash ahead of substance far too much... seriously, its all well and good to have things look impressive, but not when it screws with functionality,

Have I done something to offend you or are you just being condescending and snide for no reason?

And as -Sean- said, the cinematic deaths will teleport your character so long as the attack is in range, even if they're not infront of the attack or behind cover of terrain that would normally block the attacks from reaching you such as a pillar (So running behind one and swapping to restoration in order to heal isn't an option either). Seeing as how melee classes can't exactly be out of range of a dragon, and in some cases these attacks can occur at almost or even totally full health, I don't think it's very unreasonable to bring this game mechanic to light and ask for a change in it.

But the fact that you're being rude about it leads me to believe that you apparently think that the proposed idea is worse than what's currently in the game, so would you care to explain why?

This. Is why my unenchanted-daggers-only Nord woman can't face a worthy enemy in a fair death duel. It is the very reason she is now at level 90 in Alchemy.

I wouldn't mind at all if the hit that reduced my character's health to zero suddenly cut to her cinematic death animation. But an alternate way would be to check if the player is within a narrowed range of the attacker's facing direction, say by 20 degrees.

To express it in code would be something like:

If ( .GetAngle Z >= 0 ) && ( .GetAngle Z < 20 )	If ( player.getpositionrelative ?, ?, 10 )		Do Death Animation	EndIfElseIf ( .GetAngle Z >= 20 ) && ( .GetAngle Z < 40 )	If ( player.getpositionrelative ?, ?, 10 )		Do Death Animation	EndIfElseIf ( .GetAngle Z >= 40 ) && ( .GetAngle Z < 60 )	If ( player.getpositionrelative ?, ?, 10 )		Do Death Animation	EndIf...	...		...	...ElseIf ( .GetAngle Z >= 320 ) && ( .GetAngle Z < 340 )	If ( player.getpositionrelative ?, ?, 10 )		Do Death Animation	EndIfElseIf ( .GetAngle Z >= 340 )	If ( player.getpositionrelative ?, ?, 10 )		Do Death Animation	EndIfElse	Don't Allow Death AnimationEnd

That way, you must be within a set angle in front of them for the front death animation to be allowed.

Is a second really long enough for you to escape the dragon's attack though? Most of the time when I try to dodge fire breath (at near full health) I can't do it in time because of the width/length of the attack.

Anyway, I actually quite like it the way it is. It forces me to be more aware of my health/defences when I go back a second time. The first time I fought a giant I was quite happy just going on the offensive until thwack one - half health, thwack two - sudden death. Made me change my playstyle etc.

I can understand how it could be frustrating though for other people who take a more tactical approach to combat. I think the best option would have been an on/off toggle, I like finishers but I'm aware plenty of people do not.

The problem is that the finisher is unavoidable like the grab / throw in a 2d fighter. And since the game is in 3d, it will teleport you into position when you are trying to dodge left or right.

Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, this would result in seeing the death blow twice, would it not? Once in normal first/third person view when you kill the enemy and his health reaches zero, then again in the cinematic finisher. This would change the effect into an 'instant replay' effect, rather than a 'real time' event.


Stannie

This is another good idea, but a small issue I have with it is that it seems to fix the issue moreso in favor of the evasive, quicksilver characters that dodge and dart around, while the problem wouldn't be fixed as well for heavy armored characters that are duking it out head to head with their opponent. If you were halfway through a power attack with a warhammer to their face that might stagger or even finish them off and they begin their attack, the problem is still there.

Your suggestion definitely would help with the "teleporting your character 10 feet and then doing the animation" though, so I'd definitely be happy if Beth fixed it with something like that at the very least. You also have my envy that you're able to just whip up a potential soft fix for this in just minutes. Shame the CS isn't out yet.

When I know a dragon is about to use his fire breath, depending on what weapon I'm using I'll either begin a power attack with a 2h weapon in hopes of making the dragon stagger, or I'll put up my shield and bash him in the face. Both will end the breath prematurely and save you a lot of health. The same thing can be done for the standard melee attacks, as well, so long as you aren't under the threshhold for a cinematic death. The problem is that if you're under that threshhold then the game says "Yeah, you know that thing you did before that worked? I'm not going to let it work this time so that I can give you a death straight out of Hollywood."

And being aware of your health and defense is good and all, and any player should do that, but that's where the problem lies. Even if you played flawlessly, the nature of these cinematic deaths dictates that sometimes there's literally nothing you can do about it regardless of how you approach the situation. If there's one thing I think we can all agree on, it's that if the answer to the question "What could the player have done to avoid dying there?" is "Absolutely nothing" then that's a big problem that needs to be addressed.

The advantage to the method I'm proposing is that it's not necessarily making the game easier. If the attack killed you before it'll still kill you now, but it now gives the player a fighting chance to do something to prevent it from happening.

This is a brilliant anology. If the player were given some means of preventing it, whether it's by dodging, blocking, or interrupting, then I think a lot of the concerns players have with the finishers would go away.

It would if the game had a delay between when the target's health reached zero and when the kill animation activated. If it was fast enough then the split second the weapon or bite that triggered the animation made contact and did damage it would skip to the kill animation before you'd be able to see the body fall over dead in ragdoll physics. Additionally, the big problem being addressed is mostly about when the finishers occur on the player rather than when the player activates finishers on enemies. I'm ok if they keep player activated finishers as they are, because it's not that big of a deal I think if the player gets a bit of an unfair advantage over the computer every now and then so long as the rest of the fight was challenging. The problem is when an enemy gets a free kill on the player when they can do nothing to prevent it other than simply having more health, which isn't always an option if you're naturally squishy or out of potions.

Ah, right. Thanks.

In that case, I totally agree with you then. :thumbsup:

Excellent post, OP. I have a big problem with the way finishers are implemented, and you've explained better than I could why it's an issue. I also came up with the same solution, waiting until you're/they're actually at 0 HP to play the finisher. Frankly, I'm dumbfounded that Bethesda could have implemented this mechanic in such a way.

Fortunately, there's already a mod on the Nexus for completely removing finishing moves. Shame it has to come to that, though. Maybe they'll patch it and make it work more reasonably, or maybe somebody will mod it in a different way once the tools come out.

Yeah this happened to me today 3 times in a row with my low HP character vs some random bandit chief. I was playing a game of cat and mouse vs his 2h axe, and was using well-timed Shouts and Shield Bashing to keep him from getting a good hit in then ... death animation. Ok maybe I messed up? Go back ... death animation. So I use a free perk to use the slow-time shield block and ... death animation?? This is so broken I had to install the No Finishers mod, and then I proceeded to beat the stuffing out of him.

Or just remove the enemy finishers all together.

There was a thread just a few minutes ago someone else made that was on the same topic as this one that got locked due to it being a little bit over-the-top aggressive, and Hungry Donner suggesting one of the older ones be bumped, so I figured I'd take the liberty of doing so and bump mine. Let's try to keep the discussion civil so that this one doesn't get locked, too. :twirl: