were not talking about flint or even bronze weapons in this game though. these are steel and iron weapons. they still use them today. you can only make an edge so sharp doesnt matter what the material is. i figure that dwarven and elven weapons are better allows that are more durable and have more enchanting ability but they arent going to be any sharper.

There are things sharper than steel even in the real world. Obsidian, for instance, is sharp almost down to a single molecule. Ebony in the Elder Scrolls universe is basically durable obsidian.

it also makes a poor weapon as native south americans used wooden swords with flint imbedded in them. they break after one or two swings. steel, iron and bronze weapons can easily cut through a limb.

That's neither here nor there. My point was to prove that there ARE things sharper than steel. In the Elder Scrolls universe, Ebony is like obsidian, but much less brittle. Daedric is Ebony imbued with the spirit of a daedra.

In any case, from a gameplay standpoint, having material tiers of weapons and armor gives the player something to work towards as you clear dungeons. After all, as I stated before, what's the point in clearing dungeons for loot if your gear is maxed out at level 5?

I would suggest the exact opposite of what OP has suggested, so the difference between the damage potential of the weapons are quite visible, so when you equip an "iron dagger" after using a "rusty iron dagger" for a while, you could feel the difference when you attack those rats around.

This way the difference of a daedric weapon with a rusty iron one would be "Immense" and the scale of the damage potential of weapons from the lower grade of them to the higher grade would be much more than what we saw in MW or OB.

On the other hand the difference of a "One Hand" skill level between the level of 5 and 6 should be noticeable, so when you advance from level 5 to 6, you should sense a noticeable change in effectiveness of your attacks to the rats that I mentioned.

And also the difference between the "Tattered Cloth Rags" with the "Tattered leathers" should be noticeable, and each small improvement of any parameter should show itself.

At last but not the least, when you advance from level 7 to 8, you should see a noticeable boost of health and power, so that each level up would be an extremely desirable event.

The accumulation of these factors, should be that the difference between low level monsters and items with high level monster and items are great, so when you see a higher level monster in front of you, you would count yourself dead, unless you retreat hastily and try to advance your skills a bit, gain a level or two, and buy a better weapon and armor, and return a bit later to be able to kill the beast that forced you to retreat.

But if you see a higher level monster and be lucky or smart enough to be able to defeat it, then the loot would be like a treasure for that low level character, and help him for quite a few levels, but after a while, when encountering monsters of a few level highers, you are forced to find a better equipment for yourself.

This would greatly enhance the scale of the game, from newbie areas to higher level areas, and each area with monster and loot level of a few levels above the last one would seem off limits until we advance for a few levels ourselves, and the constant sense progression through-out the game would be unbelievable.

i like realism...but no over character proggresion and key gameplay elements

what they should do then is differentiate between levels of swords then which they sort of do anyways they just need to expand upon it. you have rusty, normal, fine, exquisite or something like that. this solves two problems. first off it doesnt relegate steel which is what katanas (arguably the worlds finest sword) are made of into the second crappiest weapon class out there and it also allows someone to use a particular style of weapon as they get further in the game. for instance..........i hated how elven weapons looked in oblivion. i had to grin and smile when i found them before my changes.

if the stats were seperated by grade of the weapons instead of the maker of the weapon you could still use the normal steel blades which is what i did until WAC came along. it svcked early on before i made my changes that the best designed swords were crappy. i changed everything to almost equal damage while giving a slight boost to daedric and ebony although i made them a bit slower as well. glass and elven weapons i made faster but slightly less damage etc. the system worked great in my game because in a fight even a bandit with a steel sword still posed a threat to me which is how it would be in reality. if im running around in leather armor someone is going to be able to easily stab me with an iron or steel weapon and kill me fairly quickly. under the default settings they barely hurt me and that is just bonkers.

of course i also got rid or extra health on level and equalized my health with the npcs making equipment and skill more important than the level. since i played with TIE and WAC the entire game was unlevelled anyways so it didnt make any difference in game what level i was. things just have to make a certain degree of sense for me in games.

@sphagne...........that just sound horrible to me. why would going up one level or getting slightly better armor and be as noticable as you say be a good thing. maybe if you have only 10 levels or so but you have 50 levels or no limit i think in skyrim. that would make horrible gameplay. i would start with 100 hitpoints and end up with 10000. my days of playing final fantasy are long over.

What about the effectiveness of decent plate armor against slashing weapons, as opposed to certain types of large pointed swords such as the German Zweihander which could punch through armor if used correctly and thrust at weak points. Other weapons designed to defeat heavy armor such as halberds and the flanged mace should do more damage against human sized opponents wearing heavy armor.

I suppose if realism were to be used developers would need to be mindful of the fact that most types of medieval weaponry were designed to be used by armies in large scale formations. Weapons used in a fantasy RPG setting would develop differently, for example adventurers would need different designs to soldiers especially if they planned on encountering exotic creatures. Fighting Dragons for example might require very long pointed weapons (short handled blunt weapons and any type of slashing weapon would be ineffective even if enchanted), but still strong enough to punch through the scales and light enough to wield. For unmounted Dragon hunters maybe a type of polearm with a reinforced shaft and a flared grip like a lance, a long slim pointed blade (maybe with fishhook like barbs to stop it being pulled out) and a large flat butt to either brace the weapon or even puncture the scales first then try to hit the butt with a large war hammer.

It would be interesting if the design of dungeons in Skyrim was such that instead of random spawns from a leveled list, the mix of encounters remained somewhat more difficult to predict. Given the fact that weapons in Sykrim will need to be repaired at a forge instead of anywhere, entering a dungeon would require an adventurer to carry a variety of weapons in good condition. In OB if you encountered a skeleton you knew what else to expect in the rest of the dungeon. But imagine not knowing what waits around the corner and walking into things with the wrong type of weapons equipped, particularly with more realism regarding weapon damage. You could walk into a gelatinous cube equiped with a warhammer and shield, or a fully armored ogre with a Kitana and parrying dagger.

The new dual-wield system would be very useful in these situations.

I'd like the damage difference to be toned down somewhat, have the more rare materials have pros/cons - higher/lower enchant capacity, durability, bonuses vs. creature types, and so on.

Obviously, Daedric should still be better than any common material, but not so much that it's like an m16 compared to the BB gun that is iron.

completely realistic "dungeons and dragons" RPG combat... hmm this is how i think itd work:

If one hit to the head or vital organ with a sword can kill someone, then there'd still need to be tiers of weapons and armor, but

iron weapons can can break through iron armor and its equivalents in a couple blows
steel can break through steel and equivalent armors in a couple blows
and so one

while iron weapons would have a considerably harder time breaking through steel armor.


also the attack type should matter:

slashing is ineffective against chain
piercing is ineffective against Plate
blunt attacks is ineffective against Leather.

If three arrows are in my leg i should run slower until i remove them.

A blunt hit to the head should mess up your vision and even knock you out.

Helmets will be crucial to surviving head attacks (as they should be)

now with dual wielding, a critical blow to your right arm would force you to switch your weapon to your left hand.

Blocking and parrying will be essential in combat.

Reality doesn't matter, Nirn isn't earth, our physical laws aren't the same - this is most obvious with magic. None of these races are human, there's no reason to believe they're not more resilient, and no reason to believe that the added effect of higher class weaponry has less to do with its physical form and more to do with the magic imbued in the material.

Nirn is not earth, don't try and apply our rules to it, especially where materials from other planes are concerned.
And as for why the legion is outfitted with rubbish weaponry, I would have thought that was obvious: those weapons can be easily manufactured in the required quantities for what is essentially an army.

:laugh: and yet bandits and maurauders are equipped with much better gear at a certain point. they dont seem to have a problem equipping themselves with higher level items.

Indeed.

Sorry, but I don't buy that logic. Quite frankly, it just seems like an excuse to dismiss the concerns of those who are more interested in believable combat. The reality is, there's no reason to believe any of those races would be more resilient to any significant degree; as long as you're dealing with flesh-and-blood beings with normal anatomical systems, the weapons used in The Elder Scrolls world are going to cause the same types of injuries, no matter what planet you're on. Unless of course there's some explanation as to how the humanoids seen in TES are so radically different...

As for the presence of magic, I think most would agree that the existence of mysterious supernatural forces is more plausible (and accepted in numerous works of fiction where everything else abides by the laws of physics) than physical laws which differ from ours to the degree you're suggesting. I mean, do you realize the extent to which the character's anatomy and the laws of physics would have to be different in order to justify the significantly increased durability of what appear to be creatures not that unlike those on Earth? The same can be said for the disparity between different levels of weaponry. In other words, the OP has a point.

The liberties taken by so many developers when it comes to weapon damage and character "health" are really quite absurd and downright lazy, given the far more believable, complex and interesting ways that things could be portrayed with current technology. The archaic, 'increase health and damage and call them a higher level' just doesn't cut it anymore. The real questions are, will they actually defend themselves better? Will their attacks be more likely to slip past your defenses? Will they hit you in more critical areas? Will there be anything about the way they fight that reflects their increased skill, other than a larger pool of health and increased damage?

If combat were done right, health and damage wouldn't have to be significantly altered, as skill would be reflected in actual offensive and defensive capabilities during combat. It would still be an RPG -- stats would still be a huge factor, but they'd be brought to the forefront and actually affect combat in a believable way. For example, instead of randomly getting a "critical hit" bonus, you'd actually be able to hit where you aimed a certain percentage of the time, based on your skill. Conversely, the more skilled an NPC was at blocking, the better they'd be able to defend critical parts of their body. This is how realism could still be fun. Tedious battles of attrition wouldn't be necessary to convey the "skills" involved.

yeah its a game, why dont we all just fly around Nirn as giant puffs of marshmellows!

WRPGs have always had very strong connections to real life, Todd has even said that that is what he enjoys playing.
you want a different world filled with exotic randomness that has no place in the real world, go play one of the thousands of JRPGs

You are forgetting that they are forging their weapons, using a hammer and grinding stone to make them sharp. The more mythical weapons are unnaturally sharp.


And Galss is more like obsidian, since obsidian IS volcanic glass, and Glass weapons are made from volcanic glass...

just think about trying to pay for civilians/houses/paychecks/food and many more things then also buying weapons and amor for thousands of troops

Seems to me that they could increase damage by a small amount as you increased in tiers, as was suggested (Say, 2 points from bottom to top) but increase durability and decrease item weight, which would also decrease fatigue costs per swing. Then you still want to improve your weapon, but it doesn't get quite so ridiculous.

I'm also hoping they make the gulf between two-handed weapons and one-handed weapons larger.

That's why the Elder Scrolls is an RPG.

That's not what I'm saying, what I'm saying is that the game has its world too far removed from our own to state that the weapons aren't realistic. This is a world where magic is so prevalent that it seems almost incomprehensible that armours aren't magically enhanced, and while they may have no magical charge of their own unless enchanted, I am sure magic went into their construction.

The alternate answer, of course, is yes: this is a game, a game where the starting weapons are so powerful that it removes any real equipment progression is not an RPG I want to play.

like he said its not like they are shooting bullets at you!

having 50 arrows in the face and still not dying was lameeeeeee

While it's true that realism shouldn't destroy game play, the days of rock, paper, scissors game play mechanics are thankfully long gone.

Mage beats warrior beats thief beats mage is a relic of some long forgotten RPG/RTS hybryid.

The armor model you present tries to emulate this mechanic and just fails. Plate offers as much protection against slash as chain mail and leather offers absolutly no protection from crush injury.

Well, we can make it all the same and forget that Daedric is naturally sharper... And then we get an FPS... (Go Fable!) :meh:

Or we can stick to what we have and let Todd Howard slowly turn it into an FPS

Yes, because The Elder Scrolls series is eventually going to turn into an FPS.....

:facepalm:

Realistic weapon damage sounds nice, but would it work with game mechanics? I understand realism is nice in some situations, but I want my daedric longsword to do a lot more damage than my iron longsword. It's part of character progresssion imo.

Not true, the properties of materials do impact how sharp you can make them. Molecular structure matters here.

Stainless steel and iron are, of course, very similar. But compared to glass or fantasy materials (daedric), there should be big differences in these weapons. And, like Sphagne suggested, it would only be helpful if BGS borrowed from real life and made some weapons more different from each other than they are in game.

In other cases, you have a point. Different leather armors shouldn't be so different (unless they are completely different leathers), and steel and iron shouldn't be so different. Iron should definitely degrade faster, though.