As far as the gladiator matches go, I think they could have done like the Romans and given a specific weapon for a specific class. ( will save classes for another thread). But in Rome, certain classes would have the quadrant. Some would have a net to throw around their enemies. And then the murmillos had the curved blades, secutors with tall shield and short blade. It seems more organized than giving an Orc his typical war hammer, or a dunmer his long blade.

Variety is nice, but at the expense of what?

Variety is nice, but at the expense of what?

It would be cool if they made the arena more about entertainment instead of just straight up traditional combat. Arena-exclusive weapons, archery and magic contests, maybe even obstacle courses for characters with acrobatics

Variety is nice, but at the expense of what?

The thing about Roman gladiator fights, especially in the latter years of the empire, was that they specifically chose weapons that were really bad for killing, but really good for making people bleed a lot.

This meant lower casualties and more entertaining fights, maximizing the arena's profits.

It would be cool if they made the arena more about entertainment instead of just straight up traditional combat. Arena-exclusive weapons, archery and magic contests, maybe even obstacle courses for characters with acrobatics

Your positions make quite a bit more sense now than they did before, although I still disagree. If you would like to continue our debate, we should do it over PMs. This thread is about weapons in TES V; we're getting off topic.

The draw weight on a longbow is approximately 500lbf, on a crossbow there was no draw just a hair trigger (1lbf?)

I think you got these the wrong way round

Kinda raises the question though, with everybody going on about realism in combat, would you be willing to accept that a character needs a huge amount of strength to effectively fire a bow? Even a shortbow would take some amount of strength. Archers of the middle ages were hunchbacked freaks with their drawing arm twice the size of the other because of all their training

I take it back..

Don't bring up guns or Fable on these forums. (Not very popular among TES players)

Having played alot of Mount&Blade (and expansion) recently, I found their system nearly perfect. They only have three melee skills: One handed, two handed, and polearms.

One handed includes everything from dagger over mace to axes, picks, and swords
Two handed includes stuff like large axes, maul-like weapons (the few there are) and two handed swords
Polearms includes everything along the lines of spears, staffs, pikes, war hammers (the proper ones) etc.

Then there's three ranged skills for throwing weapons, crossbows and bows.

So the number of skills (at least in the melee department) is quite low, but the variety of weapons is huge. And, most importantly: There are few "better" and "worse" weapons. Some players swear that a simple wooden spear is the best, others love their two handed swords, others want huge axes instead, depending on their playing style. If you want raw power, go for a maul or two handed axe. If you want speed, go for a spear or one handed weapon. If you want extra protection, take a spear, one handed weapon or bastard-type weapon with a shield. If you like to dodge instead of blocking, take something fast and long. If you are good at blocking (you have to manually block in that game, chosing the right block direction against the incoming attack - there's four possible attack directions, similar to Morrowind), you might want to do without a shield because you're faster then. If you're not that good at blocking or if you're facing archers, you'll want a shield. (Note that in that game, your speed and the relative speed of your opponent are also important: A horse that rides into a spear takes alot of extra damage, because of the forward movement of the thrust and the forward movement of the horse hitting against eachother, multiplying the damage)

Ranged weapons also work very well, and throwing weapons are balanced, especially due to the limit to "active" weapon slots. You can only have four weapons with you during combat, even though you might have a dozen weapons in your inventory. These four could be: Sword, shield, long axe, throwing weapons. Or: sword, shield, bow, arrows. Or: spear, shield, crossbow, bolts. The thing is, throwing weapons only take one slot because you don't need extra ammo for them, making them a good choice for a player who wants both, sword&shield and a two handed weapon (for example because he only wants the shield in case of facing an archer, but normally prefers his glaive - or because he wants to have a sword, shield and pike against horseman).
Bows are very very lethal in that game, but then again, with a shield you're safe until it breaks or you get shot in the back; making it possible to play a dedicated archer who has a POWERFUL weapon, but there is a counter against it.

Something like that would help alot. Having not better and worse weapons like it was in Morrowind and Oblivion, but rather having weapons that are made for different situations. A spear that is especially long would be perfect for fighting wild animals - because they cause alot of damage and you don't want to get hit. A sword & shield would be perfect against archers; the shield slows your combat speed down, however, making you worse against someone without a shield. A two-handed weapon would be perfect in melee, but easily countered by someone with ranged weapons or someone who hits from out of range / jumps at you.

That also leaves alot more possiblities for unique weapons. They don't only have a damage value to make a difference between them. Their individual weight, length etc would matter. So you could have a certain, unique sword, that, while not being very powerful, is especially fast and good for blocking. Or having things like "long iron spear", "steel spear", and "orcish glaive"; the latter would be slow but powerful, the steel spear would be more powerful and harder to break than the long iron spear, but the long iron spear would still out-range both other weapons and would be better suited against an animal that tends to jump at the player.

There's so many possibilities if Bethesda would leave the path of making weapons as linear as they are, only different in damage output and how fast they break.

The draw weight on a longbow is approximately 500lbf, on a crossbow there was no draw just a hair trigger (1lbf?)

I think you got these the wrong way round

Kinda raises the question though, with everybody going on about realism in combat, would you be willing to accept that a character needs a huge amount of strength to effectively fire a bow? Even a shortbow would take some amount of strength. Archers of the middle ages were hunchbacked freaks with their drawing arm twice the size of the other because of all their training

Bows are made with a specific draw weight, and that can vary tremendously from one bow to another. You can only "effectively" use a bow with a draw weight that's lower than your own strength, but the draw weight puts an upper limit on the power of the bow, regardless of strength.

Crossbows either used a crank to produce the needed leverage (slowly, but with a LOT of potential power), or else used one's stronger back and leg muscles (faster, but not as powerful) as alternatives to building up sufficient muscle to use a regular bow with any real power. The rate of fire from a crossbow is drastically lower than an equivalent "standard" bow, although the exertion from drawing a normal bow will soon degrade its rate of fire as well. The biggest advantages of crossbows were that it took less time to develop the skills and muscles required to use one effectively, there was no need for a variety of "strengths" to match the archer (standardization), and it didn't take a genius or years of practice to point it at someone and pull the release lever. In effect, any peasant with a crossbow was a threat to an armored knight, which made it VERY unpopular with the nobility, and all but non-existent throughout Europe in the early Middle Ages, until the outside threat of archers from the Middle East made it more convenient to allow it than to ban it.

Modern compound bows are one way of increasing power without raising draw weight, by adding pulleys to produce more mechanical leverage. They have a relatively "long" draw, and are slower to draw than the traditional "selfbows" or "composite bows", and as such are a compromise between the two forms.

I would at least want to see the morrowind weapon themes back, and maybe some exotic weapons. The blade and blunt skill in oblivion were boring, no challenge, there should be conseqences for using something your not food at, like extreme fatigue lose and falling down.

-spear
-axes
-halberd
-daggers
-shortswords
-longswords
-broadswords
-claymores
-katanas
-dai katanas
-tantos
-wakizashis
-long bows
-short bows
-crossbows
-maces
-staffs(that you hit things with)
-flails

For me the key things are; one the weapons have varied styles, game play, pros(blunt weapons should cause stun effects much more often than a short sword) and cons. In Oblivion the weapons types all felt the same and had the exact same perks. Also please do not have them all strength based if I roll an assassin don't make me pick up strength just so I increase damage with a dagger. If I'm a mage let me have a staff weapon based on intellect or willpower. Otherwise I like diversity, but don't want half of TES V skills to be weapons. Ohh dual weapons would also be nice.

Feel the same way, here are my ideas for secondary effects.

Walls of text are your friend... :wink_smile:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1104920-tesv-weapons/page__view__findpost__p__16177304