I hope it's toned down. I'n oblivion when I used my melee character he staggered after almost every hit. Really annoyed me. But then this is just another reason I prefer to fling arrows at people from afar.

Take a UFC fighter, have him take a blow from a gorilla, see if he staggers. Bet you he'll crumple like a sack of meat. Staggering from taking a hard blow, hardened warrior or not, will happen. Especially if you are fighting things like trolls, ogres, etc.Even a sword blow from a bandit would cause the most hardy warrior to stagger backwards and take a moment to gather himself.

I want you to perform this experiment. Operating budget (counts change) $2.79.

you could be a 400 pound muscle machine a minotaur clobbering you with a hammers gonna knock you back

I don't know. Might be hard to book a UFC fighter. Especially if they know they are going to have to fight a gorilla. heh.

i feel you op
in oblivion it was annoing
you couldnt do a thing :facepalm:
i hope in skyrim it will handeld better

Not me. Combat has suffered enough pansification already. The last thing I want is more of it. You want to fight with the big dogs, learn to keep up says I. That's what games have been missing with their "we'll make sure nothing's ever a real threat" overdone level scaling and such.






Indeed it is, and hooray for that.

Well they should at least improve the staggering dynamics. It was AWFUL in Oblivion. My brutal orc warrior with a massive battle axe staggered by a fragile wood elf blocking with a tiny knife. NOT realistic, sorry.

What would be realistic is the elf dodging the damn strike, not blocking and staggering me with a damn butter knife.

Grummite Deathdealers.

I staggered every hit against those especially, but also against most other opponents.
I'd like to see it toned down a lot, and hopefully the new combat system will allow for that, or at least make the consequences a little less annoying.

If not... then maybe i'll just make more ranged/mage characters.
^_^

Ahah I hate it in Morrowind when my godlike character can't get a hit in with his Daedric Dai-Katana because some puny NPC keeps knocking me to the ground with hand to hand.

I hope it's changed. Staggering as a result of shield bashing or being hit with a heavy weapon and/or power attack I can handle. Being staggered by some wimpy character spamming attacks with a dagger needs to go.



Exactly.

Just raise your agility. Then you don't have to worry about it as much.

Not with Oblivion's staggering dynamics. My 100-agility characters were staggered quite often.

dude, watch some real fighting: not only do impact make you staggeer, but blows close to/directly on the head can literally make black-outs, loss of balance, confusion, and direct one-hit knock-outs. it doesn't differ much with weapons. Back in medieval ages, one of the most common ways to get rid of an enemy wasn't to stab him, but to strike hard enough for him to fall down. and believe me, with the sheer power of those hits, they usually died of choking, or barely survived it.

Consider yourself lucky we only got stagger and knock-down.

and BTW, I used to practice fighting quite a lot when I did martial arts. after a really hard blow, especially if it's right on a weak spot (which the human body is FULL OF), even the toughest guy will stop fighting for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes. not only does the pain prevent your from moving enough to fight back, but your reality gets altered a bit. you don't see the same way, and your priority is definitely to make sure that the blow you just received didn't do too much damage.
That's why I'm not a fan of japanese RPGs. in those, people take a nuclear explosion to the face and barely say "ouch", keep their footing and keep fighting as if nothing happenned

This. I like the staggering, but it should be regulated somehow. It makes sense to be staggered when fighting a huge dragon, but fighting something smaller and/or weaker than you shouldn't warrant so much staggering.

Yeah, but at least we get the shield bashing, which hopefully will stagger enemies even if they're blocking, so you can land some hits on them. The main problem with Oblivion's fighting system was that you and the enemies could just keep blocking everything, timing had no part at all. Right mouse button -> I win button. =P

I like the concept of staggering, but the implementation with a couple of enemies was absurd in Oblivion, namely Clannfear and Ogres. Those two could 'stagger-lock' you, staggering before you were out of the first stagger and leaving you absolutely defenseless. I had a level 54 character fall, from 100% HP to death, because of this insanity, all because the foe managed to get one damn hit in. Occasionally I'd get staggered an annoying amount of times while taking on a pile of guard archers, but I suppose that's what I get for deciding to off entire towns, eh?

Other than the locking, I liked it for the most part. I only hope the chances of this are slim to none in Skyrim, as nearly 80% of my encounters with Clannfear have been ridiculous bouts of being staggered to death or near death before I could get a hit in or spell off to kill the stupid thing. Ogres are towers of muscle, so I kinda justify that as such, but Clannfear's staggering ability and insane lunge distance made them simply a pain to fight. There was no fun at all in battling them, and I can't say that for anything else in Oblivion.

So that's my two cents, take it or leave it. Moral of the story, kids: I friggin' hate Clannfear.

YES....if they do bad blocks,badly timed swings,have low fatigue,face someone who is equal or better than them.
There are loads of reasons why a fighterwould get knocked around...loads.
I played first person in oblivion ,i did'nt mind getting staggered at all.
And in skyrim it happens more often,and that pleases me,it's more realistic and will add more to combat.
You will have to learn how to fight,learn about different enemies,i really like that.
Also are you telling me a giant,mammoth,or sabre toothed cat would'nt stagger you or knock you about?.......get a grip son....course they would.
Trust me it will teach you how to fight properly
Thanks i'm here all week.

KING: kyler47 you are my son,( the [censored] ) sorry.....the prince.....go and lead your men....drive the beasts and creatures off our land!
KYLER47: but...but...sir dad.....they will stagger me...and i weally,weally don't like it,i want to hit them once so they die.
KING:my son.......PISSOFF! and learn how to fight!....be gone with you!
THE END.
Sorry....i mean no offense...it's a joke

You should have taken that as a tip to increase your agility which by the looks of it you didn't do a whole lot.

^^ hehe ...

KING: Learn how to use your shield and you will not stagger.

KYLER47: But sire, I use my shield, I block well, yet I stagger still.

KING: Dearest son. Yes, you block well. But it is a shield, the last thing you do with a shield is use it to block a blow!


Certainly a shield may be used to block an incoming blow but in doing so you are asking your body to absorb the full force of the attack and you will at best stagger, at worst suffer a dislocation or break. The latter, an almost certain result of an attack by troll or minotaur, would equal instant death - realistic?

The correct use of a shield is to parry or deflect incoming blows, minimising any harmful effects on ones self and maximising the chance of creating an opening in your opponents defence, possibly having the force of their swing throw them completely off balance. Someone well versed in the use of shields will know all the angles, the twists and turns required to keep the angle of incidence as oblique as possible, the resulting force of the blow, calculated from the sine of this angle, is massively reduced - realistic?

Beths use of the word 'block' in relation to shield skill is totally incorrect but assuming they do mean shield skill then a high block skill should mean far less staggering - realistic?

So, your shield skill totally svcks and you are staggered for a second. Against a nimble opponent with a light weapon you are dead - realistic? Against a heavy weapon you may have time to recover, but a heavy weapon is more likely to cause a dislocation (=death) or a knock down and stun (=death).

As you can probably tell I have great trouble equating Beths combat with any definition of reality.

How? No-where in game did Mr. T drop in over the screen and yell 'increase your agility, fool!' Left in the dark.

I really like the sound of how the combat is being polished. But I'm a bit worried people like me won't have enough intelligence to figure out the finer subtleties of combat..

It would be nice if there was some kind of *optional* trainer chap in-game who can tell you exactly when to block, slash and dodge your average enemy. Or even a 'blocking for dummies' guidebook. You shouldn't have to spend hours browsing third party guides just to learn how to stop being a pinata for a wood elf. As funny as it is!

Staggerings fine I don't see the problem with it plus Enemies stagger too if you block then at the right time.

Now take that same giant gorilla, give him an enormous 2-handed axe (labrys) and have him fight an emaciated, unarmed slave. Watch as he winds up and delivers a devastating overhead blow to the cowering slave's pathetic attempt at blocking with his bare forearm. Now watch as the gorilla staggers back, stunned by the sheer force of Oblivion's [censored] combat engine.

I like the stagger idea, it's just overly exaggerated. TES supports tactical combat, so they want you to wait for openings to attack. But the tactics all fall to poop when you're basing your strikes on the next time an opponent is staggered. They need to tone it down for Skyrim.