Ideas To Improve Next Elder Scrolls Melee Combat

[Some_weirdGuy]

http://i71.servimg.com/u/f71/14/26/98/51/alrigh11.jpg

To all who took a massive crap on the OP, before you instantly assume it's terrible just because you saw the dreaded word, "quicktime" please actually read the OP in full. Seriously, if I see another person who just writes off the entire system I just thought out without explaining why it would be bad just because they saw "quicktime", I'm just going to ignore that post completely.

Dude, i mean this with only the exact right amount of insulting(no more or less) when i say you're really coming across as kinda douchey.

"you disagree with my idea? well you clllllah'hearly have not read my post at all! As my concept is entirely without fault, and any opinion to the contrary is simply outright wrong due to it's addresser obviously having stopped reading only a few words in."

Your idea just isn't what people want. Maybe you like that sort of stuff, but i personally found it to be one of the most annoying mechanics ever included in prince of persia((In nearly exactly the same implementation that you describe, including the different 'tiers' of QTE)) and god of war, and translating it into Elder Scorlls sounds awful...

So no, people ARE reading your post, i think you'll find the reason they are disagreeing is simply because your idea is just unappealing, if not outright off-putting. Sorry if that annoys you or feels insulting, it's nothing personal.

-----

As for your open question, I guess A way to make melee more interesting would be to take cues from fighting games/brawlers, ((soul calbur 3 comes to mind personally, but that's just cause I like that one over more 'arcadey' style fighters that relay more on annoying struggles to get into position)). Kya: dark lineage for the ps2 was a pretty great example, it was an action-adventure platformer that had a well developed fighter-game type combat system, felt satisfying to beat up on the wolfuns .

So yeah, I guess that means bring in attack combos and stuff, and i guess leveling up various things might give you new combos, or make them more likely to not be blocked. You could get around the need for multiple buttons((which people brought up as a potential issue)) by instead assigning it based on different mouse-swipe shapes, input delays, and perhaps even stuff like whether you have sprint or... sneak? toggled.
((I mean, that would triple the number of 'moves' if you have those two as toggles that effect combat. eg. sprint = heavier more powerful melee, sneak = lighter quicker melee))

 

[Kaendris]

Here is what I would like to see done.

1. Different weapon types should have a different speed and fighting style. Fighting with a Longsword requires a different technique and strike sequence than fighting with a mace, or hand axe. Each weapon "class" (if you will) should have a different set of animations and fluidity to the combat motions.

2. Impact and blocking effects. I want some reaction when a blow strikes home, or when I eat one on my shield. The screen should jolt, there should be a sense of actual impact. Better sound effects and particle sprays. If my mace slams into a shield, deflected to the side, I want to see sparks and hear a scraping sound, not just some hollow, metallic thunk. If I land a blow to my opponents unguarded side, they should react, perhaps spin in a daze, or stumble and switch stances to cover the weakness.

3. Targeted damage. For the love of everything holy PLEASE just do this already. An arrow to the throat should be game over. If I do direct damage to a guards knee (that's right...I said it) I want him limping, his combat ability reduced. Good shots to the arms should cause opponents to have slower strikes and defenses. Head shots to helmets should daze and stagger opponents.

4. I would like opponents to actually surrender if losing. Not all the time of course, but there should be a part of them that values life, and begs for mercy. They should flee, and I mean really flee, not just run around in a circle until I corner them. If you beat someone in a stand up fight and they yield, there should be an option to take what you want from them and release them. Later down the line, they could come back and try to kill you, seeking revenge for their humiliation if they dare. Or, perhaps they are grateful for your kindness and send you money or items down the line. Heck, maybe some of them have a change of heart and you see them later as village guards...

5. More emphasis on defense. Right now in TES biggest sword wins. I would rather have it where you can not just out-swing your opponent, but have a system where you actually need to be concerned with the number of times you are hit. I think non-regen on health would assist with that. Add in PC area damage and critical wounds and you are golden.

6. Harder stealth. Line of sight becoming important, light sources becoming important, dead bodies becoming important, noise becoming important. The stealth system in TES is a joke and my least favorite part of the game. Even though my stealth is 100, you should be able to see me crouched next to a torch if you are looking at me. They really need to come up with an entirely new approach.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts and I know they won't be popular with everyone. I just think the game could benefit a bit more from a sense of reality.

As for the question of QTEs. No. They break immersion, are not challenging, and take the control away from the player. They are designed to create a system that looks cool (and SOMETIMES delivers, if I am not scanning the screen for the button), but requires no true skill. I would rather have a one button kill, than a 4 button kill.

 

[Broderick]

One thing you guys need to consider though is that Dark Souls' combat is made for third-person. Elder Scrolls has been and (hopefully) always will be a first-person game at its core. (With optional third person of course.) I really don't know how Dark Souls' combat would translate into Elder Scrolls.

I have seen a couple people mention Dark Souls as a good example of melee combat, and I agree, but let me elaborate on it. When I say more like Dark Souls, I dont mean "harder" or "have a lock on", I mean make the weapons have weight.

As it is, the weapons in the elder scrolls games hardly feel different from one another(in my opinion at least); there is absolutely no weight to the weapons. Swinging a Claymore should not feel the same as swinging a broadsword, and I feel that adding that weight to the weapons will at least make them feel different from one another. I mean they already have increased stamina costs for the two handed weapon's power moves, so now they just need to make it "feel" like you are swinging a massive piece of weaponry around. To me, the two handed weapons in the game just feel slower and make slightly more noise compared to it's one handed counterparts.

To show an example, I am going to link a video.

Spoiler

At 1:02 it features the short sword. Now contrast this to the Great sword at 5:57; not only are their move-sets, appearance, and swing speed different, but also the sounds they make, and the amount of bodily movement of the character wielding them as well. When the character swings each weapon, it looks like they put the right amount of muscle in to do so(at least to me).

While this may not be a "fix" per say, I think that it would go a long way to help make the combat in The Elder Scrolls games feel more fulfilling. As I said though, this is just my opinion and not an end all be all "fix".

 

[Blunderboy]

Yeah, having read the whole of the OP I'm out. The backstabbing system is not what's missing from the Elderscrolls combat. I can't put my finger on what is exactly, but it's not that. For me, the Elderscrolls has always been about immersion, and that would be broken the instant a pop up appears like that. Hell the quest pop ups are bad enough as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Blunderboy]

Or I could just let this chap post for me, as he seems to have summed up my thoughts perfectly.

Here is what I would like to see done.

1. Different weapon types should have a different speed and fighting style. Fighting with a Longsword requires a different technique and strike sequence than fighting with a mace, or hand axe. Each weapon "class" (if you will) should have a different set of animations and fluidity to the combat motions.

2. Impact and blocking effects. I want some reaction when a blow strikes home, or when I eat one on my shield. The screen should jolt, there should be a sense of actual impact. Better sound effects and particle sprays. If my mace slams into a shield, deflected to the side, I want to see sparks and hear a scraping sound, not just some hollow, metallic thunk. If I land a blow to my opponents unguarded side, they should react, perhaps spin in a daze, or stumble and switch stances to cover the weakness.

3. Targeted damage. For the love of everything holy PLEASE just do this already. An arrow to the throat should be game over. If I do direct damage to a guards knee (that's right...I said it) I want him limping, his combat ability reduced. Good shots to the arms should cause opponents to have slower strikes and defenses. Head shots to helmets should daze and stagger opponents.

4. I would like opponents to actually surrender if losing. Not all the time of course, but there should be a part of them that values life, and begs for mercy. They should flee, and I mean really flee, not just run around in a circle until I corner them. If you beat someone in a stand up fight and they yield, there should be an option to take what you want from them and release them. Later down the line, they could come back and try to kill you, seeking revenge for their humiliation if they dare. Or, perhaps they are grateful for your kindness and send you money or items down the line. Heck, maybe some of them have a change of heart and you see them later as village guards...

5. More emphasis on defense. Right now in TES biggest sword wins. I would rather have it where you can not just out-swing your opponent, but have a system where you actually need to be concerned with the number of times you are hit. I think non-regen on health would assist with that. Add in PC area damage and critical wounds and you are golden.

6. Harder stealth. Line of sight becoming important, light sources becoming important, dead bodies becoming important, noise becoming important. The stealth system in TES is a joke and my least favorite part of the game. Even though my stealth is 100, you should be able to see me crouched next to a torch if you are looking at me. They really need to come up with an entirely new approach.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts and I know they won't be popular with everyone. I just think the game could benefit a bit more from a sense of reality.

As for the question of QTEs. No. They break immersion, are not challenging, and take the control away from the player. They are designed to create a system that looks cool (and SOMETIMES delivers, if I am not scanning the screen for the button), but requires no true skill. I would rather have a one button kill, than a 4 button kill.

 

[Proto325]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Chivalry yet, though I don't know how it would translate to consoles. At the very least, maybe replace the block for non-shield users with a parry.

As for backstabs, how about they tie your skill and weapon quality to risk of getting caught before and after the kill:

Any knife can do an insta-kill, but you have to be a certain distance from the enemy depending on your skill level in stealth. With low skill, you'd have to be almost touching them, so it's more risky to go for it. At higher levels you could be at the max range of the knife, and maybe you could unlock a skill at Master level that lets you lunge at an enemy from a short distance.

The quality of the weapon could determine how "clean" the kill is. With an iron dagger your enemy lives just long enough lets out a yelp before he dies, or maybe stumbles forwards and clatters to the ground, attracting nearby guards to his position. With better blades they make less of a fuss when dying, because they cut better or something (LOGIC!). This isn't strictly necessary, and I suppose you could base it on weapon skill instead, but this way there's a reason to get better daggers later on.

 

[spartan231490]

snip
Type 1: The hardest backstab to do. If you backstab someone that is a Type 1, you will enter into a 3-button quicktime sequence snip

Absolutely not. Quick time events do not belong in TES. The entire system is meant to flow, quick-time events are flow breaking. If you really want to improve TES combat, the best way to do it is probably to have blocking be passive. Anytime you're attacked there is a chance that you will block the attack, unless you're attacking or staggered. That is a very simple change that fits in with the overall flow of the game, and still makes combat more interesting.

In other words, just like how Morrowind had it, but was switched to manual blocking because everybody hated it being random.

No, morrowind had hits vs miss random, which sucked. This would only be blocking, and for shields you would still need a cover option

Wrong. In Morrowind the player only blocked with the shield at random intervals based on the player's block skill.

I wasn't disputing that, I was saying that hit or miss was also random in morrowind, and this is not analogous to the current combat system of TES, so you can't predict if people would like it in the more modern combat system. Sorry if that was unclear.

 

[Sansha]

I think Chivalry does combat very well, in that there's a basic slash, a heavy attack and a stab, and combining them in combos is the most effective way to fight. I think an actual dodge control would be handy, too - to either just bend one's body or entirely jump out of the way of a blow.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I wasn't disputing that, I was saying that hit or miss was also random in morrowind, and this is not analogous to the current combat system of TES, so you can't predict if people would like it in the more modern combat system. Sorry if that was unclear.

Yeah, I can, because said random combat system was removed in Oblivion and it was pretty much universally praised for it, meaning that going back to randomness for any of it would probably be just as universally panned for it.

 

[spartan231490]

I wasn't disputing that, I was saying that hit or miss was also random in morrowind, and this is not analogous to the current combat system of TES, so you can't predict if people would like it in the more modern combat system. Sorry if that was unclear.

Yeah, I can, because said random combat system was removed in Oblivion and it was pretty much universally praised for it, meaning that going back to randomness for any of it would probably be just as universally panned for it.

"Probably" means it's your guess.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I wasn't disputing that, I was saying that hit or miss was also random in morrowind, and this is not analogous to the current combat system of TES, so you can't predict if people would like it in the more modern combat system. Sorry if that was unclear.

Yeah, I can, because said random combat system was removed in Oblivion and it was pretty much universally praised for it, meaning that going back to randomness for any of it would probably be just as universally panned for it.

"Probably" means it's your guess.

Don't twist my words. I'm saying probably because I don't have numbers so I'm not going to state what I said as fact, and unless I found polls and such with massive numbers to work with it would be statistically irrelevant anyway even if I did have numbers to provide. However, I don't really need those numbers anyway, fans of the Elder Scrolls series as a whole aren't going to like to see a return to the random combat of Morrowind, the overwhelming rejection of it and praise for the opposite all but unanimously by countless fan and professional reviews after the series removed it is proof enough of that.

 

[Gatx]

Mount & Blade would be what I'd hope they do, especially if they go with a similar equip system for their weapons. The way Mount & Blade does it, it allows for you to see your equipped bows and arrows and your sword and shield so you have that fully equipped look that mods keep trying to add. They'd have to revamp the whole inventory thing and how it relates to combat though. In Mount & Blade you're access to your inventory while in combat is limited (like physically), while in Elder Scrolls you're free to go into it whenever and switch between any weapon you have on the fly, which would ruin the strategic valley of equipping certain weapon combos ahead of time.

 

[SuperfastJellyfish]

All the weapons in Skyrim feel like plastic LARPing toys, and they don't even look like they're hitting the enemy. Change those two things and I think it'll be right as rain.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Pretty much how Arena and Daggerfall handle melee with some of Mount & Blade's mechanics thrown in should be enough. WASD + mouse (or analog + analog for a controller) can make for a lot of moves, and the add in your character's grip to determine those movesets.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

3-button quicktime sequence

No, this is shit. Quicktime events are terrible. I prefer a system where if you stab someone in the back, you backstab them (you see what I did there, that's what backstab means and I said if you did that you get a backstab... yeah). Backstabs don't have to be instant kills either, jabbing somebody wearing a +100 Armour of the Gods with an iron dagger won't do much no matter what angle you stab him at.

That being said, I would love the idea of a more responsive and skill-based combat system. Either do a fast-paced Dishonored style combat with a focus on blocks with you having more difficulty with crowd control or do a Dark Soul-esque system where you have to read your opponent to avoid damage with dodges.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Dude, i mean this with only the exact right amount of insulting(no more or less) when i say you're really coming across as kinda douchey.

"you disagree with my idea? well you clllllah'hearly have not read my post at all! As my concept is entirely without fault, and any opinion to the contrary is simply outright wrong due to it's addresser obviously having stopped reading only a few words in."

Your idea just isn't what people want. Maybe you like that sort of stuff, but i personally found it to be one of the most annoying mechanics ever included in prince of persia((In nearly exactly the same implementation that you describe, including the different 'tiers' of QTE)) and god of war, and translating it into Elder Scorlls sounds awful...

So no, people ARE reading your post, i think you'll find the reason they are disagreeing is simply because your idea is just unappealing, if not outright off-putting. Sorry if that annoys you or feels insulting, it's nothing personal.

No, there's a clear difference between disagreeing with me because of logical points and putting down the equivalent of 'lolno'. THAT'S what ticks me off. For example, both ZAZL and Megahedron wrote very good rebuttals to my system. That's what I wanted. Not some stupid, super-low content post.

Anyway, to continue, let's just forget about QTE's for a second here. Now, some people want to make Stealth more realistic or at least harder. That's absolutely fine. The problem here though arises in the fact when they say that damage should be dictated by skill and sometimes, the kind of dagger being used. That sounds fine but the whole point of stealth is to NOT BE SEEN. If you are seen, it should be a punishment for sneaking badly. Now, back to the point. If I'm at a very low level and I backstab someone, chances are, with this system in place, yeah, the victim will incur some hefty damage but it won't matter because since it wasn't a successful backstab, the victim will still obviously be alive and boom. Cover blown. Now you're going to have to face off against a massive group of people and you're just a lowly thief. Yeah. What was the whole point of doing any of that?

 

[Silverbeard]

Kingdoms of Amalur (anyone remember that one?) did combat very well for a pre-gunpowder setting. At the time of its release I always said that Skyrim was a better game than KoA in every aspect except combat, in which KoA was as far ahead of Skyrim as Enterprise E was ahead of Enterprise A
I had hoped that Bethesda would grab the KoA developers when they all got booted from their jobs, the poor chaps. It would be good use of the talent and an improvement of Elder Scrolls combat by a great deal, especially if they keep what they've learned about third-person cameras from Skyrim.

 

[Pandabearparade]

you will enter into a 3-button quicktime sequence that must be done successfully or else the person you're trying to backstab will break free and might even possibly damage you in the process.

That's where I stopped reading. Keep your quicktime garbage out of my Elder Scrolls and Fallout. It's bad enough having to mod in faces that don't look like a pig's ass and it's even worse that I need a mod to toggle off fucking contextual kills. Quicktime? Do. Not. Want. Bethesda games are about atmosphere and immersion, button prompts flashing across the screen like horror movie ghosts popping out of the closet just don't fit.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

you will enter into a 3-button quicktime sequence that must be done successfully or else the person you're trying to backstab will break free and might even possibly damage you in the process.

That's where I stopped reading.

That's where I stopped reading. Thanks for giving me a perfect example of what I was talking about, pandadude.

 

[Pandabearparade]

That's where I stopped reading. Thanks for giving me a perfect example of what I was talking about, pandadude.

Perhaps it would have been more constructive to say: "That suggestion shows a complete misunderstanding of everything the Elder Scrolls series is about and is actively counterproductive to the atmosphere that Elder Scrolls games attempt to capture."

Quicktime events have a place, but that place is not open-world role playing games.