I thought this were implemented!? - I agree about the arrow shooting, and one of my favourite sports in the beginning chapters was to kill dumb Goblins with a single shot. Good luck, of course, but all such shots successful have been in the head, so I assumed it was a critical place to hit.

I agree this game needn't be a sports game in combat, but a little more realism would have done it good because combat is the center theme here, I should guess, and it would enhance complexity of tactical strategy. - But something makes me still puzzling if there is not more implemented than what meets the eye? I just flicked through an armour dealer in Chorrol and she offered iron arrows for 2 gold and steel arrows for 4 gold. Interesting both arrow types had the same nominal weapon value of "3". So this is confusing if there is not more to combat model hidden!

This is due to rounding small values. If values were shown to 1 decimal place you would see a difference at low skill levels. At higher marksman skill levels you will see differences.

edit. The main differences are in the bows rather than arrows. Mods such as http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/514-duke-patricks-combat-archery/ make changes which differentiate arrows more than vanilla. For example in DP's mod iron arrows are slow and heavy. You have to compensate a lot when aiming (very looping trajectory).

See combat is a "theme" in rpg's but fans like me who mostly if not only play rpg's and are loyal to the point of mania to their favourite games its not the main "theme"..
My selling "themes" are...
1st: Story.
2nd: Depth of npc's and their settings.
3rd: Massive depth to the societies you deal with.
4th: Dialogue.
5th: Ability to roleplay in as many ways as possible.
6th: For the system to allow that, giving non violent means, tricks and tactical options to use.
7th: Originality.
8th: Customisation.
9th: An interface simple in its implemation but complex and varied in its functions.
10th: That it looks real. gritty or beautiful depending on where its set.

It shouldn't be too hard to implement something like varying damage depending on which body part you hit. It already takes hit location into consideration when it calculates your armor skills. If you wear light boots and heavy greaves and get hit in the foot, you gain light armor skills, and if you get hit in the legs you gain heavy armor skill.

Yes, I suppose you have a point. And, if I can make a suggestion about TES5 without aggravating the moderators, it would be to further improve the realism of the combat model.

Beth did such a great job with modeling a naturalistic bow experience; I challenge them to make sword fighting equally naturalistic in TES5. Wouldn't it be great if you could swing your sword with one of the joy sticks on the controller (or the mouse on the PC)? The speed and direction of your swing would be totally determined by how you move the joy stick, instead of the "canned" horizontal sword swings we have now. This would be great if it was coupled with damage that is at least partially determined by location of hit.

Just a thought.

At the risk of rambling again, there was this great first-gen video game in the early eighties in which you controlled a sword fighter with two joy sticks--one controlled movement of the char, the other controlled movement of the sword. It was simple but elegant. Back then the AI technology wasn’t so great so it was a two-player game only.

I hope they don't "improve" the combat model to the point where it becomes a player skill rather than a character skill. There would be absolutely no point to training and leveling a skill if the player's skill was what determined the character's success. This kind of "improvement" would be another move away from the RPG concept, and towards just another "first person combat game."

Very good point. I do think they did a good job with the bow, but it is not purely character skill at this point, it is more of a compromise. It feels smooth and like I'm shooting a bow, but damage is dependent on char skill, equipment and buffs, etc. I'm not sure if to-hit is based on char skill or not. It defininately makes a difference when this player is not sober though.

No. Absolutely not. This kind of thing is one of the main reasons I have no interest in playing Daggerfall. I'm glad they got rid of that particular combat mechanic and I hope they never bring it back. Give me character skill over player skill any day.