Dude, you nailed it to the wall. You earned a place in valhalla for that post. Thank you.

And, you know arcanum, you sir win the game

I only have one thing. Tes has heard backlash for streamlining in oblivion, but the response from skyrim was much greater. Hopefully they will make note. They did with dlc, immersion, etc. All their attempts to make a system for leveling has seemed experimental.

I really hope with what we gained through perks, they give us a lot more coherent of a system in es6.

Ugh. The people here that make excuses for Bethesda constantly removing stuff are atrocious.

Spears, Throwing weapons, Levitation, Mark and Recall, Waterwalking, Cast-on-Use Enchantments, Medium Armor, Short Blade skills, Attributes, clothing under armor, about half of the spell list, etc.; that's more than an item or two. In return, we got "fizix", where everything flies around the room if you bump something, and bodies go soaring through the air when you stab them with a dagger; fully voiced NPCs with only 10% of the dialog; AI schedules, so instead of the NPCs standing around or pacing the floor in one room, they pace back and forth from home to work every day. Instead of character choices, branching dialog, and customizability, we got "looks and sounds pretty". Nice trade: half of my RPG options for some extra surface features that I can take or leave, kind of like exchanging a solid utility vehicle for a subcompact car with racing stripes. The "value" is similar, even though it won't do half of what you bought it for. Why would anyone complain about that?

We just dont want TES to turn out like Mass Effect. Completely understandable worry to have, since every other big single player RPG franchise has gone that direction.

Doesn't that apply to spears too though?
A whole set of animations, finishing moves etc would be required for them. I'd like to see them in but they were never exactly a popular weapon.
If things are only included when they are "done properly" we would end up with a game that handles a few things very well but ignores a hell of a lot. Much as I love MW there was a lot in it that wasn't "done properly" but I'd rather have those features in than out.

if would be cool if they made spears, halberds and other stuff in the next TES, but if they don't im not gonna complain and claim they are streamlining the game to the point there is 1 city 1 dungeon and 2 side quest because everyone knows it won't happen.

Halberds are technically battleaxes. . .

The word says so, yes, but the function is threefold: pole axe, spear, grapple hook. That's a bit complicated for a game, I guess, but you could live without the grapple hook function.

I never noticed until now, but you're right. The sleep-to-level thing did make it feel like more of an accomplishment. I'll bet they removed it for conveniance.

I'd like to see a function of a Spear weapon that can do a Multi JAB...maybe incorporate it into a magic spell or such. I know, you guys are probably thinking "Diablo"..but that skill belonged to the Amazon, while in this case, anyone can do a Multi Jab. Plus Diablo cannot be compared to Elder Scrolls, not even the LOTR Trilogy. Elder Scrolls is totally a different genre, although fixated in the "Dark Ages", so to speak. SURE there are alot of changes that could be made. Although the SPAN of this game is so massive, it could become a massive Multi Player RPGame.... Not like World of Warcraft which s so "Cartoony"...But back to the point, Spears should've been in this game. I cannot imagine why it was left out...It would definitely add to its mystique.

How many finishing moves do each weapon have? Hell, I know some of them are copypasta from the others. Case-in-point: No matter what weapon I use, be it greatsword, sword, or dagger, I seem to stab the opponent and put them up in the air before dropping them.
The spear could definitely do this, although yes, it would need new animations.
Decapitation? Fine, simply swing the spear horizontally to cut through an opponent's head.

I don't know how long the finishing moves took Bethesda to make, but the spear would probably only take the same amount of time, possibly less, than it did for the rest of the weapons. There's only a few different types of finishing animations, not a massive amount, after all.

Plus it'd give the appeal of a fourth weapon type for Two-Handed, seeing as One-Handed has Dual Wielding.

Swing a spear to decapitate somebody?
Difficult with a weapon that doesn't have a bladed edge.
Still I'm not arguing against including spears, they are one of my favourite weapon types in MW, just pointing out the lack of logic (IMO) in the post I was replying to.

What was your first TES game?

Skyrim?

Anyway, that extreme scenario you are describing might not happen. But then again I did not expect level scaling to return either.

I have to admit that I never played Daggerfall all that long so I really do not know much about that game.


Let us start with Morrowind vs Oblivion.

"Long dialogue is long and boring."

We got: Almost no dialogue. ("That is cool, I only wanted to know where I could kill stuff anyway.")

"The skills are so confusing. Medium armor is so complex..."

We got: Lots of skills removed. ("It all makes much more sense now. I never used enchanting anyway.")

- Spear removed. ----> Less options and a great weapon was lost.

- Medium Armor and Heavy Armor together ---> This might be good because IMO the armor skills were wrong from the beginning. They should have been working with penalties on stealth and stuff if your armor was heavy.

- Axe + Blunt Weapon. ----> Does not really make sense, does it?

- Short Blade + Long Blade ----> Ever seen a thief fighting with a claymore?

- Unarmored ----> There was really no reason to remove this. It was just a fun little thing to try out sometimes and those little things made Morrowind fun.

- Enchanting ----> Kinda like unarmored. But to be fair they probably removed it so they could keep enchanting items as one of their fancy Mages Guild perks.

"Combat is boring. I cannot hit things."

- We got: A crappy combat system. ("This is so awesome it is like you can feel the blows.")

The thing I hate about the combat system is that it is terrible. When I am playing an RPG I want it to role-play not to hit things. I would much rather invest my time into fine-tuning my skills than into utilizing... power attacks. Yes, power attacks do I really need to say more? The combat system does not fit the RPG but it would not fit the action game either because it is not good enough for that. It is like an elephant with the reproductive organs of a mouse: it fails with both kinds.

- "People just stand around doing nothing. Not realistic."

- We got: People running in 1000 yard circles instead of 10. ("It is like this world is alive. Even though everyone sits in a church for freakin 3 hours.")

Look, this system was not all bad. Shops closing when the sun goes down, people sleeping and eating. But despite the obvious annoyances in finding people that run around all the time there was another thing I found annoying. Beware this is highly subjective: Sure in Morrowind all the NPC's were just standing around but that worked on my imagination. I imagined Fargoth living in Seyda Neen and doing stuff and so on but in Oblivion when you actually see them do all that stuff it is rather dissapointing. Because it is the same all the time and not even all that realistic.

- "I hate having to walk so far and I somehow have not figured out that I can use silt striders."

- We got: The dreaded fast travel system. ("Now I can just skip all the role playing and get right to the action. Action games? Not for this guy.")

Seriously I would like you all to not say "Don't like it, don' use it." it is like giving someone Goldbrand at level 1 and then saying that he does not have to use it. Once again, I play RPG's to roleplay and that is kinda hard when someone asks you to 'Fast Travel' what do I even have to imagine? My character flying at super speed? Sure Morrowind had this too but it was lore-friendly and did not bring you to dungeons. The main problem is however that this allowed to developers to send you around the whole map for Fighters Guild quests because you had fast travel. This practically forced you to use it. At least in Morrowind the fighters guild quests were closer to home for the most part. A lot more realistic than 'realistic' Oblivion. Also, why make the landscape interesting? You have fast travel.

"NPC direction are way to vague. I play games to relax not to think. Does your head hurt too when you are thinking?"

- We got: A compass and a red arrow ("I do not like finding stuff. I want to kill things.")

These two things were bad to begin with. With all that talk that Oblivion had about realism (Radiant AI and stuff) this red arrow was actually very unrealistic. NPC's could not possibly know the GPS coordinates of the cave after all so vague directions should be key. My complaint about these two things is however that they led to bad design. Like Boring quests because the red arrow shows you the way all the time.

"What is this mist? In real life I can see miles ahead."

- We got: A terribly small looking world. (" Who cares I can site the a low-res rendering of the Imperial City from up here.")

Yes, you can see miles ahead in real life and that is why this sytem svcked. Look while the TES games pretend to take place on a huge scale they are in reality only a few miles across. I know that, you know that, the developers know that and that is just something we will have to live with. But c'mon is it really realistic to be able to see the capital of your country from the border. I personally found it very annoying that my RPG experience was once again sacrificed in favor of graphics.


There are more points to consider but they mostly fall under these things so I will not include them. (I am sick of ranting.)


I have never played Skyrim so I cannot really give my opnion on that. I will just say that Bethesda barely listened again but we knew what to expect, did we not?

In Skyrim you can decapitate with a mace. :shrug:

Honest-to-goodness spears were in one game. *ONE GAME*. And they were pretty paltry in damage at that.

So lay off the freakin' spears fer Talos's sake. :facepalm: