In Morrowind and Oblivion if you hit someone with an arrow for example in the head it would do the same damage as if you hit them in the toe. I didn't like this. From what I heard when this topic came up before oblivion came out they decided they wouldn't put it in so people did not need to wear a helmet because they liked looking at their character's head.

My idea on the topic is that the hit location should effect damage taken. A hit box for each area an armor piece covers and as many armor pieces as Morrowind had to go with that. Also this hit location could then effect the damage taken by the armor as well like if you get hit in the right hand your right glove will take damage.

What are y'all thoughts on the matter?

Love, Lion Turtle.

Yes, thank you. Someone else other than myself that believes that when I shoot a guy in the eye with an arrow he should take variably higher damage.

Edit: Magic should not be affected by this system except maybe the effect of damaging armor.

Yes, boom head shot what the lol. I saw Todd is a huge fan of boom head shot philosophy too.

Yes but not x10 damage or anything, just a nice 1,5 times damage bonus.

Not sure why people wouldn't want a system like that. It's just silly that an arrow to the shin is as damaging as an arrow to the head. I think a system similar to Fallouts crippled limb system would work well in Elder Scrolls (no VATS though of course). It'd be very satisfying to criple a fast and dangerous foe with a precise arrow shot to the leg or give an enemy heavy damage with a long range head shot.
The cripple limbs/individually damaged limbs system would work great with melee as well. An enemy carries a particularly scary weapon, go for the arm that weilds it with your sword/axe/mace etc.

Not to mention that it makes stealth-related skills far, far more useful without requiring a massive amount of extra work or effort on Bethesda's part. A character who hasn't been spotted by enemies is invariably going to have a somewhat easier time lining up a shot to the head with a ranged weapon and a much easier time managing a proper headshot with a melee weapon (assuming NPCs actually bother to move around this time).

Personally I think a 1,6 bonus would be more fitting.

For melee weapons I don't care, but Marksman should definitely have something like this.

Taking the words right out of my mouth. This would not only deepen combat and make it feel better, it would also allow more thinking in combat then just hack n slash all day. It also would help give marksmanship a point since if you have good aim and you shoot a lightly armored guy with a normal crap tastic bow n arrow in the leg, it should make him move slower. If you have an awesome bow n arrows and shoot the same guy in the leg it should take him off his feet and prolly render that foot useless. The strength of the bow and arrow vs the strength of the armor on the part of the body you shoot should deturmin the effect on stats and health of the foe your shooting at. It would also allow you to lets say cripple someones weapon arm then beat on their defence(with say a shield) untill their endurance is down to where they drop from fatigue and you can just finish him off. If your good enough and have strong enough gear for the foe you are fighting a headshot or two should kill them easily.

Voted against - TES is a character stat based game, not an ego shooter - and it should stay like this. Character Skill >> player skill, even though this already was dumbed down in Oblivion.

Like I have stated before I feel this could be intagrated into the defense stats rather well. Its not meant to be an "ego shooter" but more so something that adds depth to the game but also adding rules to it so it still fits TES and doesent just turn into a shooter.

I am all for this idea. Perhaps daggers would get an extra damage bonus from attacking the backs of enemies while in stealth? Stabbing a guy between the shoulder blades should be more effective than poking a guy in the head, but maces could knock someone out more easily when hitting the head of a target. Oh what fun this would be!

...of course by now the combat is most likely already finished, so any input here is for fun not effect.

TES has always, without a single exception, been built around a combination of character and player skill, and never focused entirely on one or the other, so your reasoning for leaving this sort of feature out is pretty flawed. From the start the games have relied on the player to control their character's movement directly, to dodge attacks and navigate certain things, to handle things like some basic platforming on their own, and to aim, time, and connect with both ranged and melee attacks. Character skill's always affected just about all of these to some degree, but player skill has always played a major role in them. I don't see why something like this should be completely excluded solely for introducing more of an impact from player skill when it can blend with character skill just as easily as so many other systems in this game (by, for example, determining the modifiers for locational damage based on character skill).

TES isn't Wizardry or Might & Magic. It's not Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. It's not a series built entirely around the character's stats and skills, it never has been, and it likely never will be, so using that as an excuse to exclude a potentially good feature makes no sense.

EDIT: And just to expand a little more: combat in particular is something that's always had a pretty huge influence from the player's skills in this series. Moreso in Oblivion than in the others, but even as far back as Arena and Daggerfall knowing how to move to hit without being hit back and to dodge ranged attacks and knowing how to navigate a space while attacking so that you don't end up cornered have been significant elements of the combat that have relied almost entirely on the player, not on the skill of their character.

Great idea but one little obstacle...In an equally balanced world, the NPC has the same chance of being crippled as you would. How would we restore crippled limbs? Rest? New restoration spell?

I'd personally see crippling a limb like a disease; You've contracted it and it has major side effects. But could we simply treat it with potions/scrolls/magic/rest?

my thoughts on the matter are if someone wants to see their characters head then they can just take the helmet off :brokencomputer:

Oh here we go with the Morrowind is god posts. :violin:

Character skill was important in the older RPGs because that was all that could be to make an interesting RPG with the technology at the time. These values have slowly drained out of the game to the point where player skills should only augment your ability and not be it. The player should get the satisfaction of doing things for themselves instead of padding their stats and letting them do all the work. As for how Oblivion is a dumbed down version of Morrowind, give me examples because I see in no way how it was dumbed down. All I see is that Oblivion has the same basic values as Morrowind. The only thing I can see that people might see as dumbing down is the consolidation of several skills. Like Short and Long blade became Blade. I don't see how that is dumbing it down, it just seems self explanatory that your skill with one blade would transfer to the other though there are aspects of a short blade combat slightly different like the weight and length of the blade but it is basically the same concept. If anything Oblivion upped the complexity of some skills (Security) and then those that pioneer the arguments of how Oblivion dumbed down the game say that Lockpicking is too complicated.

Yes to the headshot when it comes to outside the marksman: A battle axe in the head should be out right Boom Headshotty!

@Lady of the Sky:

1,6 or 1,5.. hmm. Lets say 1,55 yes?

i always thought it would be cool if, say your wearing steel armor and someone shot you with an arrow that arrow would deflect off, depending on the strength of the bow only would it penetrate and cause big damage

Very good point that. If it was treated like a disease was treated in Oblivion, by going to a chapel then it'd have to be fairly rare that you, the PC, were crippled, otherwise it'd be irritating having to travel to a healer/chapel after every fight. I'd assume you're limbs would get crippled a lot mor ethan they were in Fallout because melee combat is far more prevalaint in Elder Scrolls.
That being the case I suppose it'd just have to be a healing potion/spell of some sort. No doctors bags or stimpacks in Skyrim I assume...
Yep good point and to be honest I'm not sure the best way to address it. Even if it turns out to be a spell/potion surely it'd still add more interest to the combat system?

Yep, like how if you shoot someone in steel plate with an iron arrow it's going to bounce of an slightly damage the armor but if you shoot the same person with a daedric arrow, it's going to slice through that armor like a hot demonic knife through I can't believe it's not butter.

Luckily we don't have to treat it like a disease since Skyrim isn't Gamebryo but Bethesda in house engine meaning no more crazy limitations like limitations on animations, walking up mountains and the compartmentalized world. If it was treated like a disease, Argonians are immune to being crippled :tongue:

Not really true. More the opposite, honestly. Character-driven RPGs in general can still work just as well as they before (it's more a matter of presentation and interface than of requiring player skill to play a larger role on that end), but the TES series is in a bit of a unique position where the player has constant and direct control over their character. You aren't giving your character a command to do something, you aren't using a mouse cursor to direct your character on how to move, you are directly controlling your characters actions and you are directly controlling their movements. Now, when we were looking at titles like Arena and Daggerfall, this sort of solution looked fine. Presentation involved a lot of 2D graphics and sprites, things like distance and hits were impossible to really solidly gauge and in general the whole "miss something I clearly hit" was more forgivable as a result, so there was no issue there with treating the games like most RPGs. When Morrowind brought them a fully 3D presentation, it more or less killed a lot of the viability of that approached. Having a "ting" or "fwoosh" sound when you swing at a sprite can certainly work as a believable representation of a hit or a miss, but having them when you see your character's arm swing a weapon directly through an enemy... that just feels horribly awkward. Again, it still works for other sorts of RPGs so long as the presentation is handled well - something like KOTOR can manage misses by showing your character visibly missing with their attacks as you aren't directly aiming or controlling those attacks - but most any approach you could use to try and fix it with these games would end up seeming awkward or poorly implemented.

Character skill was important in older RPGs because a game driven by character skill can be compelling in terms of character building, character differentiation, and more general tactical decisions. It's much easier to make a thief feel different from a fighter in a game where the character's skills are the main deciding factor in success or failure, because that thief will be absolutely useless in a fight and that fighter will be useless in a stealth situation. The TES series is just designed in a way that makes it very, very hard to really maintain that sort of character influence in a lot of ways without the actual gameplay seeming exceptionally strange or awkward. It's not so much an issue with the genre as an issue with this particular series.

Thats a good point as well. If you or your foe are wearing armor thats really good and you get shot or shoot that person square in the armor with a crappy bow n arrow the arrow should bounce off due to the armor being far superior to the weapon used. Some may not like that so it could also be based on the marksman skill so the lower your skill the higher chance your arrow will bounce off of a superior armor since your not skilled enough to shoot the arrow effectivly enough to penatrate the better armor.

Boom! Nut shot.

eyes
head
torso
limbs
groin

Maybe the material of the arrows themselves could have an impact on how you can penetrate their armor. Maybe having an arrow of the same material as a specific set of armor makes penetration chance go up by 50% or so, and +10% for every armor upgrade for that point on.

Even though I entered the TES world with Morrowind, my opinions are not that simple - Morrowind was brilliant because of its exotic setting, but the (mostly FedEx-) quests and scripting were poor compared to Oblivion - i'm definitely open for improvement. I'm fine with security, too, especially since it's optional. And I do see the compromises between Player- and Character Skill necessary to craft a real time game as opposing to round based stuff. So maybe I'm biased because of my own style of playing, but i feel more satisfaction if my char gets through a hard battle because of the time I invested in his training (bad word, since i never used a single trainer NPC in all TES games I ever played) and maybe in collecting decent equipment, as opposed to me hacking wildly on the keyboard and maybe hitting something by chance.

I guess it's also a matter of how important one sees fighting in a TES game - to me it is just a vehicle to create suspense from time to time. I do play TES games to enjoy storytelling, not to master my computers keyboard or mouse.