I'd rather go with oblivion's system because I think if you had an enchanted dagger or something you'd only need to scratch someone and it would fully engage the magical enchantment. I don't see how weapon skill would affect a magical spell. In fact, game breaking or not, it seems more realistic (lmao) to me that an enchanted item would NEVER run out of charge or at least it would recharge itself over time.

I like having player skill determine whether you'd hit something or not as well rather than stabbing someone who's two feet away from you and missing because you're somehow that terrible with a blade. Now whether you're good enough to seriously hurt that person or whether your strong enough to actually get through their defenses is another issue and that should be based on skill with the weapon.

I really think they got combat right in oblivion. IMO It just needs a little variety in the animations for the humanoid enemies.

You may not care that the enchantment system broke the RPG mechanics. That's fine. It's your personal taste. Being an RP game I would expect that the RPG mechanics would work as they are meant to. That's my personal taste. You calling it a 'limited view' makes as much sense as someone suggesting that FPS should have stats determine your chance to hit. They don't have to-hit stats in an FPS - that's why it's an FPS. They do have stats in an RPG - that's why it's an RPG. If you don't want stats in your game then go play a game without stats e.g Grand Theft Auto.



Try swinging goldbrand around in Morrowind with a low long blade skill and see how much damage you do. Try swinging it around in Oblivion with a low blade skill and see how much damage you do. If you can understand that difference then you'll see the light.

When you have a combat system where players are fundamentally able to use both types of weapons equally regardless of skill then you have a broken system.

But... he's right. I'm guessing that if something was enchanted with shock damage it's just need to touch them to shock them

Oblivion had a lack of (useful) randomly spawning enchanted weapons. At lower and mid levels the only way to get something half decent was to be a proficient mage and make it yourself (or do one of the lower level Daedric quests which should all have been lvl 20+ imo)

So a mage with a low blade skill and the ability to enchant will be able to compete with a skilled warrior with a high blade skill who can't enchant his weapons

I personally think they should give you an option for your combat style.I think Bethesda should develop the game around classic, dice rolling combat.(AKA. Morrowind) then as an option for an "action" mode, which I think would be easier to code in as an option compared to a Morrowind system. Everyones happy :celebration:

If Bethesda were to develop both, the likely outcome is that both would be merely average. Whichever Bethesda picks, they should develop exclusively.

I see what you are saying. If you have 1 skill point in blade/long blade, remove the enchantment ( it is irrelevant to weapon damage as it is a magical attack not related to skill with blades), you will still do more damage in OB. In MW you will be swinging through the target all day but never do damage. Is it you just dislike the combat system- where the gameplay is a more accurate depiction of combat rather than an antiquated dice roll to hit system like MW?

basically what i am saying- when it comes to enchantment the attack doesn't have to be hard, or well placed attack, or skilled in anyway, the lightest tap will do, as long as it discharges a magical attack so powerful, it basically vaporises anything being hit. weapon skill doesn't and probably shouldn't make enchantments more or less powerful. I can think of systems based on the tes systems that modify how powerful enchantments are, but none are related to weapon skill.

I think your issue is with how weapon skill works in general. It is rather 2d imo. In OB, Weapon skill only really gives better attacks/damage at higher levels. I can't say I hated the to hit roll in MW. But in retrospect it's not very realistic, and for many it will just be kinda stupid standing there swinging all day. RP to me is immersion in a character and/or world. slashing air all day doesn't seem to be a prereqist of that.

Keep in mind that the most 'unrealistic' thing about Morrowind's system was the lack of animation depicting the reason that your attack 'missed'. With such animations, a system like Morrowind's could be considered more realistic than one like Oblivion's.

yes perhaps. there is dodge in oblivion which fills in there somewhat. an animation system that made 'missing' an animated feature could be possible, I can see how it could be set up and work, and be a good gameplay mechanic if not over used at lower weapon skills. my only worry is it seems to quite difficult to pull off visually and keep it dynamic enough. unless there is a procedural animation system i don't imagine it would look very good. though I do actually have hopes that a system like that might actually happen.

If Bethesda could get a recoil animation to play correctly in Morrowind they could surely have gotten a dodge to work visually and kept it dynamic enough. Bioware managed to get dodge animations working nicely in Neverwinter Nights 1 - a game that was entirely controlled by character stats. In fact I think all combat animations in NWN (a game that came out within weeks of Morrowind) were superior to Morrowind's combat animations in every respect.

Dragon Age (whatever other flaws it has) also has nice dodge animations, in my opinion. I seriously doubt there is anything particularly difficult about animating dodges in a character-stats-controlled game - if the developer has the will to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-quGPWGYoM had some very nice dodge animations too. You can see an example of it in the fight at 1:08.

Emphasis mine. NWN's (and DA's) combat is very different from Morrowind's and Oblivion's. With NWN/DA, an attack was considered a success or failure before the animations are even started. Quite often in those games, I'd be up near an enemy, turn and run away, then get smacked by the enemy despite there being a large gap between us with multiple NPCs in the way. It's because the game already decided I got hit before I got out of range, so I took damage regardless of where I was when the animation was triggered. You also had a lot less control in combat.. you don't have fine control over where you're aiming, you can't move while attacking, etc. In a way, those games are heavilly staged.. it calculates what happens, then animates what happened with no real deviation possible.

In Oblivion, an attack isn't considered a success until your weapon actually connects with the opponent, or in Morrowind until the right point in the animation when it makes a box collision check. If you or your opponent is able to move out of the way just before the attack connects, there's no hit. Nothing is decided until you see it happen, which is the point where your skills come into the equation (and makes playing a dodge animation impossible, because you've already visually connected; a stagger after being hit is different than a dodge before being hit). MW/Ob combat is more real-time and takes the player into consideration more than NWN/DA combat.. and that's what makes MW/Ob combat more engaging, IMO (Oblivion moreso than Morrowind).

yeah dodge is straightforward easy, if you don't mind going back to a static dice roll combat system like MW. anyway, specifically I am talking about a 'miss' animation, which imo is totally different in concept to dodge as well.

there is already dodge in a ways. imo it's a different thing to be missing an attack because you have poor weapon skill. So what happens on screen when you miss with a strike? logistically, I'm thinking it has to be a dodge like animation... which is why i do not think it would look good without a procedural animation system. and even then combat interaction gets complex really quick if it's dynamic interation.

and comparing NWN is seeming like apples and oranges to me. if Kcat says is correct, and rightly points out, then the relevance the hit box and real world physics has, is down graded and the system is no longer dynamic, and damage is dealt regardless of action. basically it's still DnD dice rolling. which is all great for RP, but is not necessary great for G. which is the crux, I believe the way forward is being dynamic and as real world interactive as possible. < i see progression in the way bethesda has been developing, which is towards this kind of innovation. I doubt there is any going back to something like that strict DnD style, I think many will find that unfulfilling, certainly the devs will

dynamically playing a dodge animation on opponents during combat in a system like MW/OB is certainly not impossible. does not sound easy in real time though, through AI and a procedural animation system, weirdly cool stuff like that can probably happen.

I suppose if it works out better, how often the enemy dodges your attack can be weapon skill based. :shrug:

Quite accurate, I used to jump in and out of combat all the time in Morrowind, quite possible to move in deliver a hit with a long weapon like a claymore or spear and redraw before the enemy could hit you. Use this in Oblivion to if you are a mage using summons you want to move in then the enemy is engaging the summoned creature.

Morrowind, Oblivion and Gothic is first person games more like first person shooters while NVN and DA:O is more like strategy games. In the first a miss on the hitbox is always a miss, in the second the result is calculated before the animation is played, that would be pretty hard with ranged magic in Oblivion where the spells might use seconds to reach the target. Yes MMO usually does it and it looks weird.

TES 5 could use animations for block including deflecting the blow in another direction; enemy attacks with a sword if you are positioned right and have high block skill the blow is redirected upwards exposing the enemy for a fast counterattack.
For hits damage would be calculated depending on weapon and armor, some armors do better against some weapons, skills and random chance. Yes a damage threshold might let you escape any damage, far easier against an unskilled enemy with a light weapon.

The result of the hit in TES (or possible miss, in MW's case) isn't calculated until contact is made, BUT the system could identify when an attack is being launched and decide THEN whether or not the opponent should dodge, block, or just ignore it. If the conditions are such that it COULD hit, and the opponent is aware of the attack, then the opponent would normally attempt to take some counter-measure. The speed of the attacker's strike and the likelihood of the attack going exactly where the cursor points would be dependent on the attacker's weapon skills and speed/agility attributes. The quickness with which the defender reacts and the chance of them blocking where the attack is actually heading would be dependent on Block or Dodge skills and Agility and Speed attributes. It might still be possible for a strike to go wide, and the opponent to dodge INTO it, or for an unskilled blocker to block in the wrong place (accuracy could come into play here as well). If the strike still manages to connect, THEN it would use weapon stats and strength to calculate damage, and shield/armor stats to mitigate that.

Nerfing damage due to skill shouldn't be a "set" thing as in OB. Allowing some variation in damage, capped by the weapon stats and strength of the attacker, with higher weapon skills tending to do slightly more on average, would be a big improvement over "rookie does 1 point of damage with a heavy battleaxe" every swing. Any idiot off the street can kill someone with a single strike from an axe or sword, without possessing a shred of skill with the weapon; the skilled wielder will just have a much greater chance of doing so.

At higher skill and attribute levels, the attacks should be faster and tend to go more exactly to where they were directed. With a skilled character against an unskilled opponent, combat would be closer to OB's "always hit". At low skill levels, and especially against a nimble adversary, there would still be some element of MW's "whiffs", but not as frequent and with suitable animations clearly showing what happened. Typically, where the player was aiming for an unarmored or less armored location, an unskilled strike would tend to deviate enough to hit somewhere else, if at all, or slow enough to be easily deflected, dodged, or blocked. You wouldn't have the painfully immersion-breaking "weapon passes harmlessly through the opponent's face" as in MW. When the defender's feeble dodge and block skills are no better or worse than the attacker's meagre weapon skills, the combat should proceed "normally", except a little slower in overall pace.

In short, die rolls have a definite place in combat for anything even remotely resembling a RPG........BUT the dice shouldn't be "in your face" as they were in MW. A rookie versus rookie fight should be just about as deadly as one between two masters, but a fight between extremes should be short and one-sided. Neither should be a 15 minute ordeal of depleting absurd amounts of hitpoints.

A thought that I had while reading these is to keep the full dice role system for weapon skills below 25 (your chance of hit increasing with each level) but have it removed completely as a Skill Perk from then on and your dammage done with a weapon continues to increase with each level up (possibly 5% per Level after 25). My reason for having the Die Role removed at 25 is that you are now skilled enough to hit an opponent any time he fails to block. As for enchanted Weapons I would eather have their used based on a seperate enchantment skill or have their effectivness directly linked to your weapon skill as has been said by others.

@Adams

Wow, that's not a bad idea at all --- but still think we need the animations for missing, which could be difficult to carry out well (....*cough*for Bethesda)

both combat systems in morrowind and oblivion had one MAJOR FLAW OF DEATH AND DOOM....

they got boring really really fast.

yes if ES 5 wants to be a greater game than both, they have to make something completely new and amazing, and now with the existence of advanced game engines and havoc and stuff like that (binary ignorance ) they can make a game where the weight, speed, and condition (sharp, blunt, broken) of the weapon is what really matters and of course the skill of the player.

And in skill I mean not the lame 100 skill old outdated system of great boredom and doom, I mean a new skill system where you learn new moves, learn how to swing better, learn how to block better, get your timing right...etc

magic and stealth also need a major overhaul, where stealth should simply be like the thief games, and magic should be much more impressive and jaw dropping and harder to learn.

if they just copy paste the old systems then ES 5 will fail miserably

Yes they would have to make a miss animation or they could use the same animation they use for dodge and add a sidestep animation and have the NPC simply get out of the way of my slow swing

The combat would be so sluggish if you added this feature, to be honest a guy with heavy armor is not going to have the chance to dodge an attack. That means they would have to add a bunch of mechanics or even a skill to evasion they most likely wouldn't. And the rate of speed that you can attack in TeS there would be no point of adding the dodging. IMO keep oblivions combat just add more abilities for ranged and combat and even magic.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who's noticed this. This is why I would rather have dodging be AI controlled rather than stat controlled, or possibly a separate skill. The First Person perspective of the series, grants the player control of stuff which dice rolls used to handle, this is why I would rather see dice rolls governs what happens when you hit, rather than if you hit. Just because hitting is player controlled, doesn't mean combat necessarily has to be less stat governed.

More outcomes dependent on character (not player) skill and a degree of randomness sounds OK to me.... actually it sounds great! But the main thing they need to do is add depth IMO. Sure you have more outcomes but you still only have the same 4-5 attacks you can do. I think adding more actions like kicks, shield bashes, dodges etc. (player controlled but the outcome is dictated by your character's skills; my hit could be a decapitation if my character's skilled enough and my opponent is weak) and environmental dangers/traps is key.

Allow the player to develop his own style of fighting. I know it's really not related but I remember when me and a friend talked about how we fought in Prince of Persia The Warrior Within. I prefered using acrobatics and constantly moving and keeping my oponents off balance taking them out one by one (still loved those multi kill finishers though ) but my friend enjoyed going in Conan style and just cut them all down. That's what I want, a system that gives you many possibilities on how to approach your battles and many outcomes; something more elaborate than moving in, slash and move out or block, slash, block. Look at what Deadly Reflex and Locational Damage did and expand on that.

Well you bring up two things that the game should utilize in how both of those specialized groups fight. Combat in Elder Scrolls for me has always been about what I can utilize to take down the enemy as fast as possible but it is very difficult for magic and stealth to do this in what I have experienced. I don't know what you mean by making magic harder to learn because as it is high level spells can be impossible to pull off.

Magic has never really felt powerful to me as a combat system in TES. It has always been easier to utilize magic to stop enemies from advancing(paralyze) or detecting(invisibility/chameleon/telekinesis) you but not to fight with. Enchanting items is the most powerful thing as far as doing damage with magic goes for TES. BUT magic in itself is presented as a "Combat System" the fact being it is easier to utilize a sword to dispatch your enemy's rather then something that that should take a lot more health when it hits. Not to mention the fact that the higher level spells are not even worth using because you will never have enough mana to really use them. I feel that a magic specialist should be able to take out most people quickly or at least do a decent amount of damage without having to slow down and wait five minutes to reenergize. As a swords man I can dispatch a lot of enemy's fast and continue to press forward. With magic I can't do that at all. Another thing is Staffs for magic users don't work as far as how they should. Right now staffs work as enchanted weapons with charges rather then focuses for a more powerful attack(like in most magic lore). It would be so much more fun if a staff made a flare that hits for 5 damage hit for a percentage more. Making the need for more Staffs a necessity rather then the same skin for every single staff. Like a mortar and pestle the better the quality the better the return. Spells are never easier to pull off as you get better at magic this is also a problem. a flare that cost me 5 mana when I started it should cost less as a level that skill because I as a character become more efficient at using it or the damage should increase by leveling that skill.

Stealth is another option that is poorly used in my opinion as a Combat system stealth attacks should almost always take down an enemy if you are undetected. If you are good at stealth then there is no reason getting behind an enemy won't kill them. A master archer should be able to dispatch or maim an enemy in a very few shots not 20 or so solid hits. Also I don't know if it is possible but having better level design could make this system a very seductive choice to be able to feel truly invisible when killing and also being able to avoid combat altogether might be a something that people would actually want to do(thieves guild).

The sword combat just feels like a pointless hack-fest as it is now. The fact is Skill level should be utilized in the area that if you are skilled you should do more damage then if you aren't. A master of a sword should be able to kill with a rusty sword easily and an amateur should not be able to utilize the higher level swords for nearly as much damage as the master with a rusty sword. As it stands now your skill is completely determined by the quality of your equipment not your level of skill. This does not mean that you should miss if you are unskilled! The miss system in Morrowind was godawful and forced me to play as a stealth player who flailed at a persons back 15 times until the dice rolled in my favor. If you are in range you will hit unless the other person dodges to the side. Or rolls away from where you are aiming. Like many others have said already if you miss there should be a visual as to why and not a dice roll. A dice roll can be nice as far as damage is concerned as far as your level goes but you run the risk of elemental war of magic and how shooting arrows from 16 archers was doing 4 damage overall.

The combat in oblivion is also faulted by the leveling system and having MOBs that level with you constantly making you feel as a player you are not improving as you go along but actually getting worse. This can be fixed by giving different enemies fixed health. In dungeon type areas having MOBs that level with you and also ones that stay at the constant. This makes exploring certain areas as a low level player very dangerous but also gives you something to look forward to once you know how to play. It also fixes the fact that bandits have higher level gear when you level up.

I feel the combat can be improved by giving you options with these systems being better balanced. A combat system only works when you can develop your own style like }{ellknight points out. Having an option to deal with situations more effectively in my play style is more fun and dynamic then the way it is now as swords are the only effective way to dispatch enemy's that means "every person" is going to fall back to that when they are in a pinch rather then the skill they invested the most time into.

I agree with a fair bit of what you have said.
Magic deffinately needs an overhaul.
I would like to see spells start out weak and grow in strength as you level up.
An example would be that a fire ball spell would only do 5 points dammage for a character with only level 5 destruction but that spells dammage will increase half a point for each level he gains without costing any more magic use. Meaning if he if he advances 20 levels in destruction that fireball spell now does 15 points dammage for the came magic cost reflecting his improvement in using that spell. this way there is a definate advantage to increasing that skill.
The same could be done for other combat skills in a formula like:

Base dammage (spell or weapon) + 0.5xplayers skill level = Actual dammage done

This way you reward the player for advancing in levels and leave options for different types of weapons, while not returning to the constant missing of Morrowind

Magic wasn't all that great as a main combat focus, because you had a shallow "pool" in OB, although a fast recharge. MW had a somewhat deeper pool and/or cheaper casting costs, allowing you to do several powerful attacks in succession, but the total lack of magicka regeneration on the fly meant that you had to find somewhere to sleep afterwards. Something in the middle, with a deeper pool but a much slower recharge than OB, would bring "strategy" back into the game. You'd soon advance enough to have sufficient magicka to burn on a single encounter or two, but would then have to bide your time before risking another confrontation. The quick recharge rate in OB meant that you tossed a spell, then resorted to a sword or other weapon until you got enough points back to throw another one. It lacked both the power to make it truly effective when needed and the "frailty" to make it challenging; ultimately it was just one more weapon in your all-purpose arsenal.

- I'd like to see spells with a "slider" to control their power. As your skills improved, you could boost the power of the spell at the cost of buring more magicka. If you raised it beyond your current skill level, there could be some risk of failure or even backfire, but you could play it 100% safe if you wanted.

This is an awesome suggestion with maybe a mix of what adams said about having the actual spell level rise.

Using a ratchet and clank type weapon/armor/power leveling would give players an option to stick with the things that they want to keep rather then having to throw away their favorite weapon for the deadric equivalent. With the magic slider system you could chose how powerful your spell was but you could have the magic start to eat your stamina quickly and eventually your health reserves if you didn't have enough mana reserve. That way you can also keep your spell inventory clean and simple rather then having a hugh list of spells to go though that all do the same thing.

The spell slider could look something like this.

Power 1-100
Magnitude 1-100
Frequency 1-100
Spread 1-100
distance 1-100

Power effects base damage.
Magnitude effects how big the shot is.
Frequency effects how many shots go off at once.
Spread effects whether a shot becomes a flamethrower or a single shot
Distance effects how far the magic can go.

all of these could effect the amount of mana used in really cool ways. For instance I want to summon a fire ball which does 2 damage but I only want it to hit one person and I want 20 small fireballs to go off when I release the spell I don't want any spread and my distance is 50 feet away. Since five is a small amount the mana cost is low but technically I am firing the same spell 20 times at once. So using it makes 20 small fireballs erupt from my hand and hit like a machine gun (if they all hit) the damage would be 40. Mana would cost more and more with the higher effects you place on a spell making it impossible to turn all the sliders all the way up and break the system. But I would see a high level mage being able to crank the machine gun anology with a damage of 5 or 10 and using the same equivalent energy putout as the low level mage using the base 2 damage.

Also if you gave fire its own slider and had the school of fire magic the more you used fire the better you can utilize the fire spell. Hence leveling your skill set ratchet and clank style.

The reason the system is more interesting is it gives players creative control with their spells. It simplifies the spell list. It creates a deeper magic system with consequence to using high level magic. Offering different visuals according to magnitude and spread offer something we have never seen in TES with visual variability with spells(instead of the same fire ball doing different damage with no visual reason why).

There are improvements to this that can be made easily and this is just off the top of my head so far and I have not gone in depth with any numbers so it might be unbalanced at the moment. But I feel its a hugh improvement to what is already in place. (speaking of which in an off topic question what is the best game that utilizes magic in a first or third person view? specifically for the magic system as a reference.)