Ideas To Improve Next Elder Scrolls Melee Combat

spartan231490

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immortalfrieza said:
spartan231490 said:
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

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spartan231490 said:
immortalfrieza said:
spartan231490 said:
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

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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

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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

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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

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Arnoxthe1 said:
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

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Some_weirdGuy said:
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

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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

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Arnoxthe1 said:
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

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Pandabearparade said:
Arnoxthe1 said:
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

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Arnoxthe1 said:
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.
 

Kaendris

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Arnoxthe1 said:
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?
It seems to me that you are not interested in overhauling melee combat, merely sneaking and how the damage output works. Which, is fine, but melee and the sneak system are truly two different animals.

Let me try to answer what I believe your question is. First off, you have to realize that TES has always presented low level characters with scaled enemies, so even at a low level, a solid back-stab with a low ranked dagger is enough to finish the job. Or at least get reasonably close. This is completely fair. A new assassin should not be able to sneak through every dungeon insta-killing everything. They should be learning their craft. Approaching the target, getting a shot in that is devastating and then dealing with whatever comes. As he improves, he is able to make those shots more deadly, perhaps getting 2-3 people before an alarm is raised. As he masters his craft, he can move between enemies like the wind, and strike like the plague. You should have to GAIN ability. Not just gauge weapon versus skill and ability to perform a sequence of buttons.

Secondly, you just stated that the point of stealth was to not be seen. So if you attempt a one shot kill, fail, and he raises the alarm, I think you have the penalty you are asking for. In reality, if you fail at stealth, and the guard raises his allies, your "penalty" is facing off against a massive group of people. Time to run, hide, the highland way....

I am going to attempt to speak for the group on this one, and I offer anyone to correct me if I am wrong. The problem with stealth and stealth kills in TES (for the record NOT the topic as posted) is not that one hit kills are cheap. It is that they are far too easy to obtain. I WANT to be able to kill my opponent in one shot without the need of a QTE, but I want getting that one shot to be more than leveling my sneak for a few hours. I want to have to think about nearby patrols, how much noise I am making, where is the best spot to make the kill, what am I going to do with the body, how much distance to leave before I start my approach... etc etc etc. If I do all of that, my reward is the satisfying animation of my dagger sinking into some vital artery. Not a button sequence that verifies my "skill level".

One hit sneak kills are fine. Getting one hit sneak kills instantly by crouching is not.

Hopefully, I am on the same page you are, and you see where we are coming from. As at this point, I am not sure there is any other answer coming.
 

Arnoxthe1

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Kaendris said:
It seems to me that you are not interested in overhauling melee combat, merely sneaking and how the damage output works. Which, is fine, but melee and the sneak system are truly two different animals.

Let me try to answer what I believe your question is. First off, you have to realize that TES has always presented low level characters with scaled enemies, so even at a low level, a solid back-stab with a low ranked dagger is enough to finish the job. Or at least get reasonably close.

Secondly, you just stated that the point of stealth was to not be seen. So if you attempt a one shot kill, fail, and he raises the alarm, I think you have the penalty you are asking for. In reality, if you fail at stealth, and the guard raises his allies, your "penalty" is facing off against a massive group of people. Time to run, hide, the highland way....

I am going to attempt to speak for the group on this one, and I offer anyone to correct me if I am wrong. The problem with stealth and stealth kills in TES (for the record NOT the topic as posted) is not that one hit kills are cheap. It is that they are far too easy to obtain. I WANT to be able to kill my opponent in one shot without the need of a QTE, but I want getting that one shot to be more than leveling my sneak for a few hours. I want to have to think about nearby patrols, how much noise and I making, where is the best spot to make the kill, what am I going to do with the body, how much distance to leave before I start my approach... etc etc etc. If I do all of that, my reward is the satisfying animation of my dagger sinking into some vital artery. Not a button sequence that varies my "skill level".

One hit sneak kills are fine. Getting one hit sneak kills instantly by crouching is not.

Hopefully, I am on the same page you are, and you see where we are coming from. As at this point, I am not sure there is any other answer coming.
Yeah, I have been focusing on sneaking, haven't I? My bad. I'll dedicate some proper time to full-on melee next post.

So, I think the main problem we're dealing with here is that a good stealth game is all about player skill. Elder Scrolls is a stats driven game. The two don't really play well together. I'm sure it can be done though. Hm. If I had to ditch the QTE idea in place of something else, I do like a system where the difficulty is all in successfully sneaking to get behind a target rather than the actual backstab itself. That way, stats can be implemented for that easily and it's more satisfying, plus it ups the difficulty.
 

Kaendris

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Arnoxthe1 said:
Yeah, I have been focusing on sneaking, haven't I? My bad. I'll dedicate some proper time to full-on melee next post.

So, I think the main problem we're dealing with here is that a good stealth game is all about player skill. Elder Scrolls is a stats driven game. The two don't really play well together. I'm sure it can be done though. Hm. If I had to ditch the QTE idea in place of something else, I do like a system where the difficulty is all in successfully sneaking to get behind a target rather than the actual backstab itself. That way, stats can be implemented for that easily and it's more satisfying, plus it ups the difficulty.
Oh I understand, trust me. Of all the things I adore about TES, the sneak system is not on the list. It is a joke, and I hardly ever go that route anymore. Seriously, crouching in front of someone does not make me invisible. At least bring back the chameleon effects if you are going to do that, then there is plausible deniability. So I, and I am sure most of the other posters, completely understand why Sneak is getting the most ire. It downright deserves it.

I also like the idea of approach to target being the key. It seems right doesn't it? That the challenge should be the stealth, the kill the reward?

Looking forward to your thoughts on the bulk of melee though. I just want some meat to the combat. Better sound, blows to seem weighted, screen effects and reactions to damage...
 

Arnoxthe1

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Kaendris said:
Arnoxthe1 said:
Yeah, I have been focusing on sneaking, haven't I? My bad. I'll dedicate some proper time to full-on melee next post.

So, I think the main problem we're dealing with here is that a good stealth game is all about player skill. Elder Scrolls is a stats driven game. The two don't really play well together. I'm sure it can be done though. Hm. If I had to ditch the QTE idea in place of something else, I do like a system where the difficulty is all in successfully sneaking to get behind a target rather than the actual backstab itself. That way, stats can be implemented for that easily and it's more satisfying, plus it ups the difficulty.
Oh I understand, trust me. Of all the things I adore about TES, the sneak system is not on the list. It is a joke, and I hardly ever go that route anymore. Seriously, crouching in front of someone does not make me invisible. At least bring back the chameleon effects if you are going to do that, then there is plausible deniability. So I, and I am sure most of the other posters, completely understand why Sneak is getting the most ire. It downright deserves it.

I also like the idea of approach to target being the key. It seems right doesn't it? That the challenge should be the stealth, the kill the reward?

Looking forward to your thoughts on the bulk of melee though. I just want some meat to the combat. Better sound, blows to seem weighted, screen effects and reactions to damage...
Alright, melee. A much weightier subject than Sneaking because now we need to deal with a lot of different weapon types.

So, I think we're all in agreement that we'd like to generally see some more oomph, me included, in the melee combat. Let's break down what will be improved when you level up.

Techniques: A person new to combat with a weapon only knows how to do three things with it. Block with it, strike with it, and strike REALLY hard with it. As one levels up though, they may be able to learn different moves (perhaps in the form of some perks) with it that scale in effectiveness according to how high up the perk tree they are.

General Strength: What I'd really like to do is reimplement the Strength stat that used to be in Oblivion and Morrowind for this. A universal strength value for all weapons and shields. But, let us assume that we don't have that luxury. In which case, it will work just like in classic Skyrim. How much damage you do and how much damage you can block are dictated heavily by how high a particular skill level is.

Second thing to do is get some weight behind those swings. Better sounds are a must. I particularly like the sound of your sword hitting armor and flesh in Morrowind. Very meaty and metallic. I think we should have four types of stunning to convey different weapon impacts.

Type 1: Normal swing from a one-handed in that the opponent might shudder or turn a little away from it but otherwise, won't have an effect in combat. Basically it looks like your swings are stunning the opponent without actually stunning them. This is purely for looks and feel. Again, has no bearing on how the actual combat will go down but it will always happen in some way or another with a normal swing from a normal one-handed weapon.

Type 2: A stagger brought on by a power swing from a one-handed OR a normal swing from a good sized two-handed weapon. The time of stagger will be a little less than a typical stagger in Skyrim. Cannot interrupt swings already in progress but WILL lessen the damage of them.

Type 3: Usually brought on by a power swing with a two-handed weapon. Will interrupt swings. Somewhat longer stagger than the second type.

Type 4: Dictated purely by how much damage in one swing is done to the opponents health. 3/4ths or more of an opponents maximum health must be taken out in one hit in order for this to happen. If it does, any swing will be interrupted like in the 3rd type and the opponent will be knocked completely down or at least be put on their knees. I don't know how long it should take for the opponent to get up though. Since such nasty damage was done, I'm thinking not for at least 4 secs.

Let's move on to Stamina now. Currently I think it does a good job with how it currently is but it can definitely be improved upon. For one, lets have it regenerate faster. Probably 1.5x - 2.0x how it normally is. Also, a normal two-handed swing will cost a little stamina as well now. The last thing will be that for every swing that costs stamina, a little bit is taken away from how much it is possible to regenerate. Stamina capacity (not the stamina itself) will be fully regained right after a battle is over. Also, just like in Skyrim, Stamina capacity can be improved by leveling up.

Now on to dual-wielding. Personally, I don't really see a difference in power output as compared to just using one one-handed weapon unless you have the Dual Furry perk. It needs to be more unique. Now, there's a lot of ways we can go about dual-wielding. Maybe we should have a whole separate skill tree for it. Actually, you know what, I really like that idea. This would give it the opportunity to stand out and allow you to earn separate techniques for it. Anyone have any other suggestions for this?

I only have little suggestions for blocking as I think it's just fine. I am definitely willing to listen though, however, I really don't think we should go back to blocking that's dictated by chance like it was in Morrowind. And I think blocking with a weapon needs to be just a bit more effective.
 

Kanova

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The second I read quick time events I said "Nope nope nope." Why would you bring those into TES? Why, those aren't even fun in any game.

How about just make it good and have really well done locational damage? They would need to do lots of overlaying health systems though. For example, hitting a guy in the chest with a great axe would hurt like fuck even if he was wearing armor, just not lethal damage. But if you hit him on the head, even if he was wearing a helmet he might still be killed or at least staggered. You know, make it how it would happen in real life.
 
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Arnoxthe1 said:
Yeah, I have been focusing on sneaking, haven't I? My bad. I'll dedicate some proper time to full-on melee next post.

So, I think the main problem we're dealing with here is that a good stealth game is all about player skill. Elder Scrolls is a stats driven game. The two don't really play well together. I'm sure it can be done though. Hm. If I had to ditch the QTE idea in place of something else, I do like a system where the difficulty is all in successfully sneaking to get behind a target rather than the actual backstab itself. That way, stats can be implemented for that easily and it's more satisfying, plus it ups the difficulty.
What about the stealth in FarCry 3? Getting behind the guy's a beast, but if you manage it it's "Good night random pirate guy!"

As for the actual melee combat, add in some more attack animations, better sound effects, and make people/monsters react to being hit in some way, like whipping to the side or limping, and I'd be happy.
 

Lunar Templar

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Let a team who doesn't work for Bethesda do it. Bethesda can still work on making the game world, it's about all their good at, but combat/characterdesign/story should be give to other teams that are actually good at those things.
 

Gottesstrafe

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Ditto on different weapon types dealing different kinds of damage, as well as having different types of move sets. There should also be more along the lines of defensive move sets to move the game away from basic MMO combat of "equip biggest sword and click until they're dead". Shield bashing was a good start, but how about something along the lines of parrying and better dodge mechanics? That would open up more avenues of combat for people who like to tank or play fast and loose with daggers and short swords. Targetted damage is also a good one, and plays into the different weapon types dealing different damage. For instance, bladed weapons could be faster, deal more damage, and have a chance of bleeding your opponent, but blunt weapons could have a higher chance of staggering, penetrate armor (perhaps even not bounce off shields), and do more crippling damage (i.e. hit an opponent's knee with a powerful mace strike and they're hobbled for the remainder of combat). Better yet, why not also add things like grappling, feinting, arrow catching, and tripping moves to unarmed combat to make it a more appealing alternative to weapon combat?
 

Pandabearparade

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Lunar Templar said:
Let a team who doesn't work for Bethesda do it. Bethesda can still work on making the game world, it's about all their good at, but combat/characterdesign/story should be give to other teams that are actually good at those things.
I keep hoping Bethesda fuses with Obsidian like in Dragonball Z, forming Bethsidian. The story and characters of an Obsidian game with the detailed world and atmosphere of a Bethesda game. Though neither can do combat well, and I'm not really sure combat can be great in a game as unchained as Fallout or Elder Scrolls.