By they do you mean Bethesda, or the video game industry? If it's the latter than all you need to do is google Dark Messiah.

That sounds great, although im not completley sure about what you said about third person (kinda confused me) im sure it would work in first person. Little steps like that are a great way to make combat that much more imersive.

@OP,
I read your post, I installed the game, and I played it. I CTDed a couple of times and there were minor graphical artifacts, but that's all cool with me.

First, thank you letting me know of this game. Like you said, graphics are awesome. Dynamic lighting and shadows, better than many other attempts. So atmospheric.

Now please tell me the final game has "strafing". I never saw a game without strafing for a long time. I actually can't remember if there was any game without strafing. My gaming goes as far as Duke 3D.

No sprint/run button is another annoyance.

But throw mechanic was just awesome. I want that, in first person though.


3rd person.

Looking at the back of your character is just ridiculous. A Resident Evil 4 camera would be more appropriate. But that wouldn't work for melee combat. The problem is melee combat should work in first person instead. The lack of games with first person melee combat is a problem but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Dark Messiah and Zeno Clash comes to my mind. It is about good animations. All the movements in Mirror's Edge worked nice because of good animations.

About the cut of peripheral vision, you mentioned. When your focus is the back of your character and when there is also a lock on going on, now that's even more restrictive. In first person, you can take a quick look left and right or even back. That is more like real life, imo. I don't know anything more personal/impactful than first person. It is hard to make but it can be done. We can dodge pretty good by ourselves if character speed is high. No need to see ourselves dodging from far back, I would rather like to see a skill based auto camera tilt(like Morrowind's auto-block). I want to see my enemies dodging. I want to see the actual stab animation for both PC and enemy.

Right now, third person in TES games are an underused option. I wouldn't mind if it was turned something like that game. I might actually want to try it. But first person is my preference. What I have in my mind is more like Dark Messiah. With the throw mechanic from Severance, what Steve the Pirate and Daydark posted. A little Thief and a little Mount&Blade.

I dunno, I don't think FP melee is inherently dull, I enjoyed the combat in say Zeno clash for instance...

FP melee is not inherently dull, its just hard to pull off. It has been done before and it will be improved in the future. It would be awesome if some of the improving was done on Skyrim though! :thumbsup:

Yes I remember. Good to see that they all eventually return. :wavey:

I agree with "target lock" for one use only: Avoiding friendly fire. But, this is not the only way to handle that scenario.

I think some simple mechanics improvements and taking some clues from fps games would do the combat a lot of good. First of all, combat can be way too frantic. Whichever direction you start to move in, you're at full speed within half a second even if you're a big slow orc. Agility should determine how fast you can move the first few yards, speed should determine your top speed. Also, the kind of starting speed oblivion had should be limited to characters with 90-100 agility. This alone will already make combat a lot less disorienting. Also, for consoles and maybe pc's too, a hint of aim assist could be welcome. After all, the combat is more about the choices you make (which spells to use, to slash/powerattack/block) than your aiming skill. As long as it's still not a burden in a crowd, it's ok.

I sort of agree about power attacks. They shouldn't require you to move in a direction. It should always be possible to use them while standing (almost) still, other than the charge power attack of course. Also, maybe make them a bit more useful in combat and context sensitive. For example, if you do a power attack in the back or side of an enemy that is off guard for whatever reason, it would be nice to have a very strong power attack with daggers and shortsword which stabs the enemy. And if you use a two handed sword, using a running power attack at somebody who's blocking should be more beneficial to the one using the power attack. Otherwise it's a bit too difficult to deal with block-happy enemies.

Zeno Clash had a very fun combat system. :thumbsup:
TES should remain focused on the first person perspective. There aren't many RPGs that still use FP.

I'd only approve of this if it didn't cause the first person view to be weaker due to third person becoming the new focus of the developers. Also, if it was optional.

i would rather see Bethesda fumble with trying to innovate first-person melee combat than fumble doing in third-person what others before them have already mastered.

Oh, no no no no no please god no. Sounds like an MMO

Too true, the reason FP combat gets disorienting is because people move so dang fast. Can you imagine if you were fighting someone in real life and they ran behind you and started hitting you from behind, it just wouldn't work.

No. I don't like your Ideas.

Overall I like it, however the focus on third person just can't happen. The first person focus is part of what sets TES apart from other RPGS. That being said much of what I saw in that video has been done, relatively well, in other first person games (e.g. Dark Messiah multiplayer has lock on for melee classes that is almost identical to what you see in Severance, and it works wonderfully). I wouldn't complain about seeing it in Skyrim personally, were it in first person.

This! TES is an RPG game not an action adventure.

To me the combat wasn't what made an Elder Scrolls game, so I really don't see why everyone else is so up in arms about this.

Also, someone mentioned Mount&Blade, another good example.

I think that targeting an enemy or a piece of an enemy's body is possible in both 3rd and 1st person views. Hacking off limbs and what-not sound like fun.

Currently Final Fantasy XIV is trying to do something like this with a lock-on system, but it just doesn't play well AT ALL. Also, the game is nearly unplayable without a game controller plugged into your PC, but that's the developers failing to properly execute a somewhat good idea.

I think that there can be some sort of innovation in this direction without completely upsetting the people who prefer 1st person view exclusively.

Sidenote: A friend of mine played a lot of New Vegas in 1st person before realizing he'd been playing naked for awhile with no armor on.. ha.

I agree wholeheartedly with the above post. Though sadly, I even agree with the part about how we'll likely never see this type of system implemented.

And to all of you screaming "NO!" and "TES is an RPG, not an ARPG!" and the like, get the [censored] over yourself. In case you hadn't noticed, Oblivion's combat had practically zero RPG elements in it, purely action. That's likely the way Skyrim will be, too. So stop whining and come to terms with the fact that TES, in regards to combat, is now based on action. That said, it might as well be based on good action, if it must be so based in the first place.

There is a lot of knee-jerk replies in TES threads, but I have to agree that first person perspective should be a priority.

Characters and NPCs move to fast.... with high athletics and 100 heavy armor I tend to zoom out of melee range by tapping a movement key and it is absurd. Slowing down acceleration would go a long way toward making melee enjoyable. Special attacks that are based on movement keys should feel like the movement is part of the attack and not necessarily eliminated from it. I could see side-stepping and getting a jab in a weak point in the enemies armor or sweeping a leg with a hammer and such. That would be nice. Magic users should have movement penalties with casting or casting penalties while moving... This could make for interesting battles instead of backpedalling mages slinging constant spells. I really just want each weapon type to have a unique style and function to keep me immersed in the experience.

Another thing, sneak attacking with a long sword should be balanced with daggers... or make the daggers better for it. Perhaps make a noticeable sneak penalty when wielding a larger sword and no penalty at all with a dagger.


I really do not buy the whole " combat is not a part of TES (even though I spend 70% of the time wandering around fighting things)". You might as well make it pure dialogue driven adventure game.

Cool story bro.

One of the things I love about elder scrolls is the complete freedom. This includes the combat: no locking, aim assisting action game shlock. Even in third person I wouldn't enjoy it. Even in a game like morrowind, where the combat is plain horrible I still wouldn't want it. I would still prefer standing in front of enemy like a wooden soldier either chopping awkwardly away or thrusting away like some depraved hedonistic pervert

Good contribution to the thread. You are teh such gud troll.

No. Please. No.


Lock-on is for kiddy arcade button mashers, I'd prefer the computer not do EVERYTHING for me.

Third-Person should only be optional, first-person should be default. Thats the whole theme of TES.

Just my way of saying, "Nobody really cares or wants this." While it's not 100% true, I still find it fun to say as it's a way to get a point across whilst having a laugh.

Sounds like a great idea, but being forced into third person for combat would be a big no-no. However, I'd be interested in seeing how the lock-on/aim assist idea would actually work in first person. Hell, to make combat more fluid, I've often thought of it becoming skill-based, in that pressing the attack button simply sends a command to the character, and they perform an animation and interact with the enemy based on skill. Or something. It's hard to explain.



Speak for yourself, son. Don't go ahead and discredit good ideas, with a lot of thought behind them, just because you don't like them. it makes you look like an idiot.