Since we already have a pick up button in TES, what if, when you have holstered your weapon, it can be used to pick up stuff, but if you're holding your weapon, it functions as a switch button. This way, one can switch on the fly, in the heat of battle, adapt to a situation.

EDIT: and if you hold it down while armed, you use your current weapon as a throwing weapon.

That actually sounds very good, don't need a new button, simply re-purpose one.

EDIT:
Another thing, DON'T make the controls for console and then adapt them for PC, make two DIFFERENT control schemes. Don't limit control options for PC down just because "consoles are limited to that too", this is NOT a multiplayer game, if the control systems aren't the same does not matter.

just for the guys wanting headshots...
Headshots with a bow aren't even half as deadly as an arrow that is stuck right through your chest.
Most shots to the head will just deflect from the skull if they don't hit in the right angle.
Yes to damage depending on the region hit but no to instagib from an arrow which just touched the head slightly!

Exactly, in fact anything that doesn't go within a fist sized area in the middle of your head with a bow would not be lethal as it would slide off your skull. Different than Bullets a arrow has a high surface area and low speed, it makes up with it's weight but still carries less energy.

Also the reason a headshot with a bullet is usually lethal is because, well if you ever looked at a block of ballistics gel getting shot look how it bulges out. That stuff has the same consistency as muscle tissue. Your brain is much softer, pretty much a bullet would turn it to something resembling scrambled eggs with red food dye.
A arrow by FAR has not as much kinetic energy to it, even if it would sting into your brain it would not liquify it like a bullet, the damage and bleeding however would still potentially be lethal in the long run and if it went deep enough it can be a instant kill.
They key word being "if it goes DEEP enough", the skull actually is a very resistant thing. A chest hit is much more likely to be lethal because the ribs are much more spaced, it's much more likely to go into soft tissue and from there into organs.

And yes, kill shots for ANY ranged weapons are generally CHEST shots, not head shots. Even snipers are advised to hit for the chest rather than the head because the head can move relatively fast, a sudden head movement can't really be predicted and it's a very small target especially if you count the kill zone only (a shot in the jaw isn't necessarily lethal you know ). Even if you had the means to aim every weapon has a level of imprecision which could be enough to just miss the head but in a chest shot still causes the lungs to collapse. And bows are VERY imprecise actually.


So factors:
-Penetration power
-Inaccuracy
-Small target + actual kill zone

No, "I just aim for the head" is not a valid argument against a locational damage system.

In police academy, they instruct you to "put 2 in the chest, 1 in the head".
In military academy, they instruct you to "put 2 in the chest".
Notice the trend? The chest is the kill zone, the head is targeted exclusively to achieve a "knockout".

what I also want is arrows deflecting from certain bones, when hit, instead of being stuck, where is clearly a bone underneath.
(even worse, being stuck through your ear hahaha)
Btw, with crossbows, hits to the head are really deadly, with bows not that much

Yea crossbows have a few advantages, for one you can aim much better, it just requires strength to hold it up and aim it and not to hold the bowstring back. The other is due to the firing strength always being the same it's easier to estimate how far and at what curve the bolt will fly.

The drawback is a crossbow is usually a lot bulkier and slower to reload than a bow, plus longbows can have more drawing strength, but it heavily depends on the built of both.

It generally requires less "skill" to use a crossbow effectively than a bow.

I'm pretty sure it is about saving bullets. But your point is still true.

What I like most medieval combat, when someone gets a fatal injury right in the beginning of combat, they can still fight until the end and just after the combat, they collapse. I would like to see this kind of combat behavior for PC, NPCs and creatures. Kingdom of Heaven has a scene like that. Also in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LHADpNw1Jw, when you shot a deer, first you may think you missed because deer escapes. But after some time, you can find the injured animal lying in some further position. Beware, it is too realistic.

Again reminds me of how Komodo dragons hunt, they don't go up and keep biting till their prey is dead, they bit once and refuse to let go, if their prey can struggle free it usually ripped a good patch of skin and flesh off which is bleeding heavily and the wound is infected with diseases (and even poisons they can self produce according to some findings). Pretty much it's injure and then wait, not "fight to the death", actually a quite energy efficient way to hunt, all you need is patience till your prey is dead. And seeing as they can bring down animals like bulls that way it does work.

While this is off that topic I'd actually like to see some animals hunt the stalker way, they attack you once causing injures and likely infections and then keep stalking you. Those would be a serious hazard when trying to camp out in the wild as sleeping would be a good chance for them to strike.

nobody can doubt that if there is an arrow that has pierced your skull, you are probably going to die soon. If hit in the chest, death will most likely come much later (in an exerpt from a norse Saga We had to read in my english class, a viking fought off a pack of wolves with an arrow sticking out of his "Fat Line" supposedly near his heart. he then died, but it was from blood loss.

You can't really say "it's POSSIBLE to survive that so it shouldn't be instantly lethal" though, most of those are "freak cases" more or less. There actually was a soldier who was shot clean through his heart and survived without immediate medical attention, in fact the injure was discovered years later and only because they found scar tissue on his heart.
The other way around some injures you'd think would be a 100% assure death can be survivable, there are people who literally lost half of their brain and survive it (albeit with very limited physical abilities afterwards) but you wouldn't really believe a NPC surviving a part of his skull being flung off.

The thing is locational damage and such should go by some factors, if you penetrated someones lungs it will cause damage and inhibit his abilities, if the injure is sufficient it will cause his lungs to collapse which is as good as dead or at least means "fight is over", note SUFFICIENT damage. Same with a heart injure, there can be some minor injures that are survivable, enough damage and you're dead.
Similarly in game a brain injure can be survivable (in game it could be simulated as permanent skill damage) but enough damage and it's over.


One more reason for a LD system BTW is sneak attacks. You simply can not balance them in the classic system, they're either severely underpowered or ridiculously overpowered. With a LD system it would make sense why a sneak attack can be lethal, you can directly sting into someones heart, slit their throat so they bleed out, strangle them so they suffocate, snap their neck or cause a blow to the head that knocks them cold.
All those would be possible in regular combat but in sneaking you got one big advantage, surprise and giving you room to "aim". People don't see you coming, they can't defend or react in any way and while they don't see you coming you have time to prepare.
Limitations would also make sense, you can't stab someone in the chest when they wear daedric armor, but you can grab their head, pull it back and stab your dagger into their exposed neck, or snap their neck, or take a wiiiide swing with a heavy blunt item which, despite the helmet, could knock them cold.

The important thing to note is that with a locational damage system, while it may have lethal target areas, hitting them accurately and well still relies a lot on the character's skill with the bow or whatever projectile. A low-grade archer wouldn't be able to just "aim for the head" and line up a chain of killshots; even if he doesn't miss, it's the difference between puncturing the skull and glancing off it. In the low odds that they do get in a fatal hit, whether the target has 30 seconds to live before bleeding to death or 10 can still be a big difference between the novice still getting his face eaten while fumbling with arrows and the pro calmly landing another one in the enemy's eye socket after they've lost their cool and left themselves open for a coup de grace.

Which of course is further diluted by whether the enemy is wearing good armor, and is another thing entirely when you consider that we're just talking about human opponents and the well-known weak spots of their anatomy. I'd like to think the game would have a diverse bestiary for whom the same rules do not apply, making it vital to know your enemy. You might get a perfect shot into a troll's chest, but then, maybe you didn't know trolls have three hearts and all you've done is shoot its pissed off button.

Semi-related, on that last note, just as an AI re-suggestion, not just different behaviors for different creatures, but different behaviors for how the fight is going, so that "now you've made it mad" actually means something. That monster may have been attacking you because you entered its territory; it's deadly, but there to kill you OR chase you away, whatever works. That stray arrow may have tipped the scales toward kill, making it run faster and more determined to make lethal strikes over just knocking you around. Light wounds could make a creature run away, while heavier ones could make it lose its mind entirely, abandoning self-preservation instincts and hurling itself at you desperately, leaving it open for a kill shot but also making it extremely dangerous. This would also go a long way toward making different encounters their own experience. Something like undead wouldn't just be a smellier, uglier retexture of the same old fight. With deadlier combat and varied AI, something that has no concept of pain or self-preservation can suddenly pose a much scarier threat.

Aye, I think it's all the bacteria in their mouths. I think that in addition to poisons being harvested from plants, you should be able to use venom from snakes or any biological weapons from animals. Nightshade is great and all, but assassin caterpillar toxins would be MUCH cooler. (Well, I THINK it's the assassin caterpillar that has the toxins that make you bleed out of every hole in your body [there is also no known cure])

What could they ditch for it?

Yea as mentioned before there should be different types of poisons as well.
A selection could be:

• Corrosive agents: Dissolve tissue and blood cells, Rat poison and some snake venoms functions that way for example
  
• Muscle numbing: Causes muscles to go numb
  
• Muscle tensing: Causes muscles to cramp up or stiffen
  
• Paralyzing: Interrupts informations to transmit between the brain and muscles
  
• Pain inducing: Poisons that simply cause a lot of pain but no real damage, Capsaicin for example does that (the stuff that makes chilly peppers hot)
  
• Blood thinning or clotting: Make blood more liquid or thicker, thinner blood prevents wounds from closing, thicker blood makes the character sluggish. Extreme infections of each can be lethal.
  
• Sleeping poisons: Cause extreme tiredness or KO.
  
• Neurotoxins: Directly affect the brain and nerves, mild versions can cause phantom pains and hallucinations, extreme ones can cause long term or permanent brain and nerve damage (skill damages for example) or be lethal.

In the LD system different points of infection can have different effects. Getting poison in your eyes can cause inhibitions or even damages to them, wouldn't necessarily have to be simulated by blurry vision but your characters reaction speed being inhibited for example. Getting stung with a paralyzing poison needle in your arm makes that arm go paralyzed and probably spreads a bit throughout your body but if the poison is too weak it won't spread far. If it reaches your brain it can cause a KO.


The already used "grab" button, give it an additional function.
As suggested before, in normal gameplay it's just "pick stuff up", in combat it's "take and throw" and could additionally be used as the "mode switch" button by holding it down while nothing is selected.



EDIT:
Oh yea, here's an idea too for something else.
In shops it would be nice if you could actually pick up items in the shop, they'd enter your inventory as "shop item", not as owned or stolen. You can then go up to the counter, get a lit of the items you've taken and pay for them... or run away without paying. After paying they change ownership to you, after running away they count as stolen. That way the "accidentally picking something up gets the shopkeep mad at you" problem.
Additionally here it could play in how much the shopkeeper likes you. If he doesn't trust you he won't let you pick up stuff unsupervised or not at all, only items you directly buy. If he really trusts you he might even turn your back on you from time to time as he thinks "he won't steal here"... which could be abused of course

With all the talk about Arrows perhaps a more effect alchemy system to curtail, I would much rather shoot you in the chest with an arrow and watch you limp away than attempt to make a head shot. The alchemy system while good could use a major over haul and the ingredients should have different growth periods so that you could only make things at certain times a year.

Also for ingredients I'd change it that they have magical effects but also chemical and nourishing effects. I think alchemy itself should be about extracting those magical effects, the better you are the "purer" the extract becomes, as a newbie they would be "tainted" or very weak requiring a lot of extracts to make a powerful potion and if it's mixed with too many impurities it's not really usable.
Different ingredients have different weights of course and different strength's of extracts. A watermelon has a big mass but it's extract could be weak as most of it is just water, but stranded in the desert that melon could save you from dehydration.

This could make for a much better roleplay. I love it.

Perhaps there could be actual services performed at the various chapels and temples in the land, not just people standing around in robes.

I'm gonna have to disagree. There are reasons for not aiming for the head with a bow, just as there are for a gun, but it's not for lack of effectiveness. The head is a much smaller target than the body. Even if you have good aim, a slight breeze could make your arrow miss, or hit at an angle that will only graze. Also, the head is usually the best armored part of the body. Even a guy wearing just chain or even leather armor might have a steel cap, and if it is rounded properly, can deflect even a straight of 90 degree angle shot.

That said, the head is a fragile target. Yes, it's not as soft as the gut, but you can survive a gut shot, and even shrug it off. The energy produced by an arrow is easily enough to break through an unarmored skull, and it would have to be a pretty oblique angle to be deflected. On top of that, it's hard to shrug off being shot through the skull, face, eye, or throat. If death isn't instant, everytime you move your head the wound is stressed. If you pull it out, you increase the bleeding. Your brain swells, and you die in an hour. During this time alive, you are probably passed out, or laying down waiting for death.

Yeah. Unless you can get an arrow in their eyeslot, it's very unlikely you'd make a solid hit on someone's head who is wearing a helmet. Even at that, these are smaller scale battles and they'd usually see it coming if they're facing you.

Something that would be very nice is if instead of charging you once they know you're there with a ranged weapon, they search for cover to assess the situation. Then they run from cover to cover to avoid being shot by you, instead of just taking one in the gut while they charge.

I don't know if this is even possible, but it would add a lot to the game if there was a pain/adrenaline meter for npc's and creatures. If their adrenaline or aggression are high because you've pissed them off or they're defending territory, they shrug off some grievous wounds in order to fight you more. If they're not out there doing that, they might retreat or hide if they're hurt.

Nah, that's just an addition to. The best place to aim for would be the eye, not the head in general, but that would be very difficult. If you're going for headshots, use a blunt weapon. Just having your brain ricochet inside your skull from a blunt impact can be lethal. I think I heard a story where someone fell down the stairs and hit their head just right and they died. Another confirmed one wasn't in the head, but in the ribcage (or somewhere near there). This student was slinging a ball with a lacrosse stick thingy and it bounced of the wall, and because he wasn't paying attention it smacked him right in the chest at just the right part in the cycle of the heartbeat to completely shatter his ribcage.

Try telling King Harold that!

Joking aside, there are some great suggestions in both this and the previous thread. Combat in Oblivion (vanilla) was a simple affair and the Deadly Reflexes mod did help make combat more exciting, but like most mods added a few bugs now and then. I still maintain the best fighting in a game I've seen is an obscure title called Blade of Darkness. Zero story but incredible, pulse-pounding combat.

I haven't played Oblivion for over a year now, even after getting a decent graphics card. I mainly have played FPS shooters like Farcry 2, Stalker and Half-life 2 at 1920x1080 res. I imagine I could probably bring my gfx card to it's knees with the Obliivion hi-res mod. :gun:

Sady, most of the cool suggestions on here will probably miss the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls series but we can all hope. Let's face it there will NEVER be a perfect TES title because ... well they haven't managed it yet have they?

@the guys claiming shots to the chest being less lethal, than shots to the head: the shot to the head really needs to thrust deep.
A shot to the chest, i.e. heart or general area around it, will make you bleed within the next 10-15 heart beats.
You just pass out to never wake again.

Or another example, after a big fight, the place is filled with moaning people. They are all injured and can't fight but they are still alive. (This can be expanded to essentials too.)

I agree, a more robust potion making system like the witcher would be really cool indeed.