Don't get me wrong, I love oblivion. it got me through grade 10, but I played it on the easiest mode possible simply because any difficulty higher, and it took 5 years of slashing with your weapon to dent the enemies HP bar, it was ridiculous. I remember downloading a mod that nerfed everythings hp by 100%, i found it very tedious. Not that I love EASY games, I just got finished playing through The Witcher 2 on the epic difficulty, or whatever it's called, and combat was really, really hard. but things actually DIED. I remember sitting there with my buddy playing Oblivion on hardest and it took FOREVER to kill a mob in the oblivion realm, it was hilarious.

So will it be the same? or will combat be more fluid, any thoughts?

We'll have to see! bliviongate:

I completely agree... It took a ridiculous amount of attacking to actually kill something... But, then again, would it be as interesting if they made it easier? But, perhaps with the improvemens with Marksman and what not, the other areas will get a touch-up as well.

Its hard to say right now. There's a perk for daggers that ups their damage by 10x so they're effective weapons when sneaking. And bows have the ability to one hit enemies as we've seen. There's been no word on location multipliers, but I think combat will be a lot more deadly this time around. Infact...given that the character was in Todd mod, the humanoid enemies all got one hit I believe. Cept the Giant, the giant didnt' go down that easy.


Oh, and don't forget the ninja dragons. The ninja dragons would like it known that if they can't have a mountain of hp, then neither can us and they reserve the ability to fling us over a ledge at any moment they so choose.

Lets hope, i hated how many hits it took to kill things. I mean maybe a few enemies will be rediculously strong but maybe everything should be more like npc, they were the funnest to fight because they died with a more realistic amount of hits. Also more hp doesnt mean a stronger enemy necesarilly an enemy that can kill u quickly but die averagely quick would be more like a difficuly monster to me

Judging by the demo i'm guessing that 999 is the max HP for everything. Todd has stated that battles will end very quickly with either you or your opponent dieing.

That sounds good. I'd love an unforgiving difficulty that made you die in a few hits but enemies don't take forever to kill, but I guess you're right. We'll have to wait and see. I just hope they learned their lesson from Oblivion and mobs having way way way too much HP.

Fallout 3 had a better difficulty system then Oblivion had by far so I really doubt they will have the same thing in Skyrim, because difficulty system was horrid in Oblivion beth found that out xD

Really don't know until we play it, but the NPC leveling is going to be more like Fallout 3's NPC leveling, so that pretty much guarantees you won't be sitting at the highest level barely able to kill anything. When you hit 30, you will feel like a demigod

maybe i'm weird, but once I leveled up a bit it wasn't hard to kill anyone. Just 1 or 2 hits or 1 arrow.

I found the difficulty system in Oblivion to be fine..
If I wanted to kick a$$ I would set it low, if I wanted a challenge I would put it to normal. The arena battles were easy though so I'd set those to about 65%

Yeah I long for the day in the videogame world when HP bars are done away with, and instead damage is determined by the lethality of the hit. Location, bleeding ect. I doubt it will be easier, but I hope the repetitious swordspamming will be replaced by tactile movement and realistic fighting.

I think I remember hearing something about finishing moves. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway, if finishing moves exist, it would be fitting to suggest that human/khajiit/argonian enemies will have much less HP. Honestly, how stupid would it feel to be hacking and slashing at an enemy for two minutes and then suddenly finishing them with a trip and a throat slash?

I believe that beth has learned from oblivion and fallout 3, it will be better. but we will have to see

The finishing moves are simply movies that the character exicutes on its own when killing the last enemy. Or if they pull off a stealth kill like we saw in the trailer. So if a hit is about to land that will kill the enemy, and it's the last enemy in the area, the finishing move is pulled instead of just a standard slash.

Fallout 3 improved on Oblivion (but than again, Fallout 3 had variety... which reduced repetition). I remember having to drop my difficulty bar to low to avoid the long, tedious battles.

I don't think Oblivion was hard. Just tedious. For exactly the reason you state. No one-on-one fight should last that long. I lose interest and my enemy is still at half health. A few times I've console killed things just because I'm clearly winning and have no interest in ten more minutes of fighting. I hope Skyrim combat is simply less dragged-out.

Most likely the difficulty for the game will be rather easy;

Here is hoping for a Mount and Blade melee combat mod.

This was because level scaling and how TES handels difficulty is beyond stupid, as far as TES is concerned Difficulty = More HP for enemies and less damage dealt by the player.


I await the time of gaming where difficulty increases NPC Collaberation, utilization of the environment, a greater sense of preservation, and alternation in NPC tactics, from fleeing, evading generally keeping the player on thier Toes WITHOUT running forever into the horizon.


and fallout 3 is no exception, I take it those who believe so haven't seen the 23 headshots into an NPC at normal difficulty.

It would be interesting if your own character was just as vulnerable. The PC would gain minimal HP over the course of the game (enough to take 1 or 2 extra hits from a strong attack), where accumulating perks gives the PC an advantage.

Wow, this thread is unexpected. I thought everyone would come here saying Oblivion was way too easy and demanding the hardest game ever or the equivalent of Arena's first dungeon for 300 hours straight.

In one of the first interviews about Skyrim, they mentioned combat has an overhaul and it is much more lethal. Combat is supposed to be harder but shorter. You can see how poorly the players in the demo were doing at combat, as they were getting hit left and right for leaving themselves open and fighting carelessly (though they had health buffs for the sake of showing off the demo.)

That said, I apparently didn't experience the same problem as some of you. I never felt like it took forever to kill enemies in Oblivion. As a matter of fact, if you enchanted your weapon AND poisoned it with something appropriate, it's way too easy to kill things in just a hit or two. I've since stopped doing those things in an attempt to make the game a little harder and the fights last longer.


What's this?! Removing an arbitrary gameplay element in favor of something more realistic?! How could you! I don't feel alive if the game doesn't tell me how many hitpoints I have!

Well he should be

if your pc has 10 stamina and that 10 stamina gives you 100hp (1stam=10hp)

and an AI has 10 stamina he should also have 100hp

If you both have 10 str (1str=1dmg for a toal of 10+dmg) and an iron sword (10+ DMG)

Then you should both die in 5 hits from each other.

It's only fair why should the game be unfair towards the AI; o wait everyone wants an easy game thats why.

Also if the AI has a poisoned weapon or HP potion and you do not chances are he's going to win.

>>off to play mount and blade.

I definitely think combat is going to be a bit more challenging in Skyrim, if the fact that you can't hold the block button is anything to go by.

I detailed hit box per enemy would put a lot of strain on processes and rendering. I believe that in some ways it should be a difference where a player hits someone, Oblivion obvisosly didnt show this, since I would peg enemies in the head without any kind of damage increase or penalty to them like we would see in Fallout. It would be sweat / awesome / incredible if we had a hit box system tailored to Skyrim. Slash at a enemies arm Chance % Based on Damage that the enemy &/or you will drop what is in the arm. Hit them in the head, chance to daze, disorient, disable, or incapacitate your enemy for a time, body blow knockback chance / disorientation... I mean it would make killing enemies easier, and wouldnt feel like Im being repressed when I am hacking, slashing, and putting about half- a dozen arrows into the enemies head and wondering a few seconds later... how does he operate with so little gray matter left.

Fallout 3 difficulty was way better than Oblivion's, and if it took you 23 headshots on normal, you probably weren't using a very strong gun, or were fighting something too high level for you, or both. That's not necessarily an excuse, because as a whole, that system isn't as good as a system that makes enemies better at combat rather than having more health and taking less damage, but for the most part in fallout 3, if you were using guns that weren't horrible, the system worked in the context it was put in.