Skyrim's combat and the action RPG genre

[Burst6]

Going to have to agree with Scow. I've never had any of the problems you're talking about(or in some cases, just don't agree that they're problems).

1. Never had this problem, and I can't see how anyone would after having spent any amount of time learning the game. Unless all you do is walk into range and spam LMB.

2. I've never understood why people think that you should be able to hit multiple enemies with a single blow. These aren't lightsabers. Any contact effective enough cause damage is going to rob your attack of force. Multihitting is a video game conceit that I associate with games aiming for an arcade feel. Skyrim is not one those.

3. Yeah, I could do without stunlock. Staggers? Sure, but nothing that lasts more than a brief moment. That said, I'd prefer if the AI was smarter about defense and opening exploitation for the very reason you profess to want stuns. So I guess this one is more an issue of us having different ideas about achieving the same result.

4. This one I don't get at all. When Skyrim came out, one of my complaints was that dual-wielding didn't allow for blocking. The most common response I got was that it was a trivial complaint because dodging is so easy. I haven't run across enemies turning into my movement to prevent a side step(though I usually just parry), so I wonder if one or the other of us is running a mod that affects that portion of enemy AI. *shrug* Also, while I don't share Scow's dislike of the Dark Souls dodge system(and those enemies really will turn to catch you if you don't time your dodge correctly), I wouldn't want to see a dodge gimmick in TES anymore than I would want locked targeting with circle strafe.

1) The lack of depth is a huge problem. I'm going to use dark souls as an example. In that game if i get a zweihander and get used to it, I'll have a good idea of its range. After a while i'll be able to hit enemies from pretty much max range because i have a good idea of how wide my swings are. In Skyrim if i want to find my max range i have to find it each time by using light attacks and moving closer until i hit. It makes the combat very.. unimmersive.

2) Like i said to scow, it's not about hitting multiple enemies, it's that if you fight only one enemy and you aim to the side you won't hit, even if your animation shows it. It's the same system half-life and team fortress 2 have, where you're basically firing a short ranged bullet when you swing.

3) The problem is that without a bit of stunlocking the game becomes more chaotic. If i hit an enemy with a large hammer i expect them to topple over at least a little. If i go in swinging that hammer (and let's say that the enemy has a hammer too so i can't outrange them), it turns into a wow-style game, where it's about who has the best stats. I remember one enemy in the game i met (because he's one of the two encounters that i felt was actually unfair). He was a bandit chief in some camp in western skyrim. He could kill me in 1 shot with his hammer (he did so 3 times), and there was nothing i could do about it. He always hit me, and if i managed to dodge back and counterattack he would hit me again by the time i did the counterattack. In the end i just went for a sneak attack and then managed to luck out when it didn't kill him and we still had to fight.

4) I never managed to dodge. The enemy attacks usually followed me and the only thing i could do was try to jump back which had mixed results. I used dual swords and the reason they work is because they do massive damage. I was able to kill most enemies really quickly and took minimal damage from them, but i still wasn't able to dodge. I'm not saying this game needs a dodge roll (though the acrobatics dodge in oblivion was cool), I'm saying the lack of a reliable way to stop their attacks and counterattack really takes away the depth from the combat.

 

[Scow2]

Skyrim fits more into a pure RPG definition.

What are you nuts or just trolling ??

Pure RPGs don't rely on players skills or mashing buttons, they are about by dice rolls and stats for fucks sake. As shitty as the action combat might be in Skyrim, it's still action combat.

Something I like about Skyrim's combat is that it isn't all about blocking and dodging - passive defenses are important too. Combat's simple and visceral: If you're a melee-focused character, melee combat's a breeze. If you're not, it can be a real challenge to survive, not just a "At least I can completely outmaneuver and pwn this guy anyway, despite my complete statistical lack of melee ability". There's some strategy involved, especially when dealing with multiple foes, but for the most part, you can fight intuitively while your character's strengths or weaknesses ultimately carry the outcome of the battle.

I think that, intentionally or not, this paragraph lays out the main problems with Elder Scrolls melee. Maneuvering doesn't really matter, strategy doesn't really matter, interesting build/gear decisions don't really matter - it all comes down to who has the bigger numbers. (Or in the PC's case, potions to chug instantly). It's like a bad JRPG where you select the attack option (and occasionally the heal option) until you grind the other guy's HP away, except in first-person and real-time.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

Going to have to agree with Scow. I've never had any of the problems you're talking about(or in some cases, just don't agree that they're problems).

1. Never had this problem, and I can't see how anyone would after having spent any amount of time learning the game. Unless all you do is walk into range and spam LMB.

2. I've never understood why people think that you should be able to hit multiple enemies with a single blow. These aren't lightsabers. Any contact effective enough cause damage is going to rob your attack of force. Multihitting is a video game conceit that I associate with games aiming for an arcade feel. Skyrim is not one those.

3. Yeah, I could do without stunlock. Staggers? Sure, but nothing that lasts more than a brief moment. That said, I'd prefer if the AI was smarter about defense and opening exploitation for the very reason you profess to want stuns. So I guess this one is more an issue of us having different ideas about achieving the same result.

4. This one I don't get at all. When Skyrim came out, one of my complaints was that dual-wielding didn't allow for blocking. The most common response I got was that it was a trivial complaint because dodging is so easy. I haven't run across enemies turning into my movement to prevent a side step(though I usually just parry), so I wonder if one or the other of us is running a mod that affects that portion of enemy AI. *shrug* Also, while I don't share Scow's dislike of the Dark Souls dodge system(and those enemies really will turn to catch you if you don't time your dodge correctly), I wouldn't want to see a dodge gimmick in TES anymore than I would want locked targeting with circle strafe.

1) The lack of depth is a huge problem. I'm going to use dark souls as an example. In that game if i get a zweihander and get used to it, I'll have a good idea of its range. After a while i'll be able to hit enemies from pretty much max range because i have a good idea of how wide my swings are. In Skyrim if i want to find my max range i have to find it each time by using light attacks and moving closer until i hit. It makes the combat very.. unimmersive.

2) Like i said to scow, it's not about hitting multiple enemies, it's that if you fight only one enemy and you aim to the side you won't hit, even if your animation shows it. It's the same system half-life and team fortress 2 have, where you're basically firing a short ranged bullet when you swing.

3) The problem is that without a bit of stunlocking the game becomes more chaotic. If i hit an enemy with a large hammer i expect them to topple over at least a little. If i go in swinging that hammer (and let's say that the enemy has a hammer too so i can't outrange them), it turns into a wow-style game, where it's about who has the best stats. I remember one enemy in the game i met (because he's one of the two encounters that i felt was actually unfair). He was a bandit chief in some camp in western skyrim. He could kill me in 1 shot with his hammer (he did so 3 times), and there was nothing i could do about it. He always hit me, and if i managed to dodge back and counterattack he would hit me again by the time i did the counterattack. In the end i just went for a sneak attack and then managed to luck out when it didn't kill him and we still had to fight.

4) I never managed to dodge. The enemy attacks usually followed me and the only thing i could do was try to jump back which had mixed results. I used dual swords and the reason they work is because they do massive damage. I was able to kill most enemies really quickly and took minimal damage from them, but i still wasn't able to dodge. I'm not saying this game needs a dodge roll (though the acrobatics dodge in oblivion was cool), I'm saying the lack of a reliable way to stop their attacks and counterattack really takes away the depth from the combat.

1. Protip: Parallax and Perspective.

2. That's because if you aim to the side, you miss. For the most part, Skyrim's "Sticky melee" strikes (An improvement from Oblivion) mean you still hit if you're only slightly "off" in your attack, and your attack favors enemies in the "Potential hit area" over Allies. Anything outside that "Potential Hit Area" is generally clearly in an area your attack doesn't have the momentum to deal damage anyway.

3. The chaos isn't a bad thing. Your enemies in Skyrim are either heavily armored, supernaturally tough, or naturally badass and tough-as-nails, and aren't going to cede their combat momentum to a quick half-handle strike from a hammer. For the most part, hammers and other heavy weapons stagger the enemy enough to make them recoil anyway. Blocking, shield bashing, Dragon Shouts, and RUNNING THE FUCK AWAY are your key to surviving encounters with heavy-hitting foes. You may be Dragonborn, but that Bandit Chief's been killing upstart punks and taking their loot far longer than you have. And unfortunately for you, he's not a dragon.

4. Enemies generally play by the same targetting rules as PCs. So either you're having a problem here, or you're having a problem with points 1+2, either way, you're undermining your own argument.

 

[Burst6]

1. Protip: Parallax and Perspective.

2. That's because if you aim to the side, you miss. For the most part, Skyrim's "Sticky melee" strikes (An improvement from Oblivion) mean you still hit if you're only slightly "off" in your attack, and your attack favors enemies in the "Potential hit area" over Allies. Anything outside that "Potential Hit Area" is generally clearly in an area your attack doesn't have the momentum to deal damage anyway.

3. The chaos isn't a bad thing. Your enemies in Skyrim are either heavily armored, supernaturally tough, or naturally badass and tough-as-nails, and aren't going to cede their combat momentum to a quick half-handle strike from a hammer. For the most part, hammers and other heavy weapons stagger the enemy enough to make them recoil anyway. Blocking, shield bashing, Dragon Shouts, and RUNNING THE FUCK AWAY are your key to surviving encounters with heavy-hitting foes. You may be Dragonborn, but that Bandit Chief's been killing upstart punks and taking their loot far longer than you have. And unfortunately for you, he's not a dragon.

4. Enemies generally play by the same targetting rules as PCs. So either you're having a problem here, or you're having a problem with points 1+2, either way, you're undermining your own argument.

I just want to say that i never had any trouble with the combat system myself. The original 4 points i came up with are things that i didn't notice while playing the game, but i thought about in retrospect when comparing it to other action RPGs with good combat (Action RPG is my favorite genre and i play a lot of them.)

Yeah the combat in skyrim works, but it's really shallow. There's not a lot to do in combat.

Demons/dark souls gives you a good variety of weapons to play around with, each with really varied attacks and the ability to dodge, block, or parry/riposte enemies with many different shields or parrying weapons. You also get a massive assortment of enemies.

The flashier ARPGs like Tales of Graces Give you a massive amount of moves to combo with and characters that each have very unique fighting styles and weapons ( If only skyrim had a bullet-loaded magic staff), along with enemies that have different weaknesses that you need to exploit by using different combinations of attacks. These games have a MASSIVE variety of enemies to kill that each need different strategies.

and even the numerous free MMOARPGs like dragon nest or continent of the ninth give you unique characters and a lot of different skills to use to keep combat interesting. Even though these games don't have interesting enemies there's a lot of them. This combined with the fact that the combat is designed for fighting a lot of enemies at once makes it entertaining.


Skyrim doesn't really have anything. You have a 2-combo light attack, 4 single heavy attacks, and a block (or a 2 dual attacks if you're dual wielding), and 3 different types of weapons that aren't that much different from each other. Yeah you can dodge, but generally you can only dodge back and even then it can be unreliable. It often gets very methodical too, dodge back, hit, dodge back, hit over and over again, and it's not really even a dodge but a backwards run. You say dodge rolling all over the place is silly, try running backwards and changing to run forwards over and over again. For added fun try it while swinging something.

Skyrim has a decent amount of enemies but they're generally unique by looks alone. The dodge back attack and repeat strategy can be applied to most of the melee enemies in the game successfully.


Also what's parallax and perspective? Can't find anything about it on google except some modders trying to make parallax maps.

 

[SajuukKhar]

The easiest change for them to make to the ES combat, to make it somewhat better, is to drastically lower the amount of damage armor negates so that melee characters actually have to block.

As it stands now armor, without blocking, can negate up to 80% of all damage, and with blocking you can negate even more, making blocking kinda useless since your already negating 80% of all damage.

Armor should only negate, at most, like 40-50% of damage.

That way your not just running up to people and spamming the attack key, you actually will be forced to block more often, making it seem less boring, because your more engaged and actually have to do more then attack spam.

that is the easiest thing they could do.

 

[John the Gamer]

If you want good, realistic combat in an RPG game, you should look into

Mount&Blade/ Mount&Blade Warband.

Two great games, with awesome combat mechanics.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Certainly when magic and enchantments get involved, your choices have a big impact and you'll probably find yourself switching your gear around. Also, playing on a difficulty that challenges you will help break up the routine of standing around drinking potions while everyone around you drops dead from boredom.

Although that's another issue entirely - Elder Scrolls magic introduces the "I win button" problem, where certain abilities instantly end fights against certain enemies.

Goddamn you're hard to please lol. I disagree that this is that pronounced or even a problem.

There's also the potion problem - instant health/mana/buffs through the pause menu is a terrible design decision. IMO, there should be a time cost for potion use, along the lines of how Witcher 1 and most turn-based games use consumables.

Indeed. There were mods for Oblivion which did exactly that. It worked brilliantly. I'm sure there must be a few for Skyrim already. There is a kind of insane genius to the Elder Scrolls, in that the games are infinitely broken but infinitely craftable.

 

[Kahunaburger]

There's also the potion problem - instant health/mana/buffs through the pause menu is a terrible design decision. IMO, there should be a time cost for potion use, along the lines of how Witcher 1 and most turn-based games use consumables.

Indeed. There were mods for Oblivion which did exactly that. It worked brilliantly. I'm sure there must be a few for Skyrim already. There is a kind of insane genius to the Elder Scrolls, in that the games are infinitely broken but infinitely craftable.

Yeah, I agree with that - I really like the Bethesda commitment to moddability in their games.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Yeah, I agree with that - I really like the Bethesda commitment to moddability in their games.

If only they would fix the fucking navmesh bug in the CK so people could actually make complex mods.

But yeah
-Make potions heal over time
-Reduce the amount of damage armor negates so you have to block

those are two easy things that would make the combat a lot better.

 

[SajuukKhar]

This would help. Not nearly as much as a new engine though.

If they change the engine though it would make modding so much harder, i would rather have a somehwta-shitty moddable engine then a good hard to mod one.

 

[TheScientificIssole]

The combat in the TES games has gradually improved with each game.

However, it's still utter poop.

One of the reasons I got bored with Skyrim was discovering that all I had to do was stroll up to an enemy and mash the attack button while slurping the occasional health potion.

And that's not even going into how easy it is to break or exploit.

As for examples of action-RPGs with better combat... Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2, Dark Souls, Kingdoms of Amalur.

Elder Scrolls + Dark Souls combat = Awesomeness.

Dark Souls alone is better than Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls games. Though Skyrim was my Game of The Year last year, because it is wildly more accessible than Dark Souls.
Seriously though, I love Dark Souls so much. Dark Souls is a game based on player skill, while Skyrim is a stat battle.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Dark Souls alone is better than Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls games. Though Skyrim was my Game of The Year last year, because it is wildly more accessible than Dark Souls.
Seriously though, I love Dark Souls so much. Dark Souls is a game based on player skill, while Skyrim is a stat battle.

If it was a stat battle wouldn't that make Skyrim based on character skill?

Skyrim really is based on player skill, its just that requires no skill.

 

[TheScientificIssole]

Dark Souls alone is better than Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls games. Though Skyrim was my Game of The Year last year, because it is wildly more accessible than Dark Souls.
Seriously though, I love Dark Souls so much. Dark Souls is a game based on player skill, while Skyrim is a stat battle.

If it was a stat battle wouldn't that make Skyrim based on character skill?

Skyrim really is based on player skill, its just that requires no skill.

I don't understand this, but I'm keeping my opinion.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I agree. Back to the engine though, wouldn't you first have to see the new engine before assuming that the same one would be better just because it's more moddable ?

If it makes modding harder I wouldn't care if it made the game look like Crysis and run as smooth as.............. some smooth running game, yeah I couldn't think of anything, it wouldn't be worth it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

]Forget about graphics. What if it actually made the gameplay fun ?

No matter what mods you use for Skyrim, the combat will still be shit. Just like Oblivion. No mods fixed that. Yea, they could help a little. But the combat needs alot more than 'a little help'.

I'd rather have a game that had good gameplay to begin with, than one that's crap but really moddable.

The gameplay is fine with mods.... you just didn't get the right ones.

I would rather have a game with bad gameplay that can be modded then a game with good gameplay that cant.

 

[unoleian]

In Skyrim, thats not possible. Combat is even more clunky and your possibilities are limited. Limited to the point where every mage, warrior and rogue character plays in the exact same way.

That's true, to a point, especially starting out, but depending on how you issue perks can really change the feel of combat considerably. Also, its staggering system is far better than in Oblivion. One thing you never, ever get from Oblivion without successfully landing a special power attack is any sensation of moving or staggering the opponent. Skyrim still ain't very good at it, but it's a hell of a lot better than the past games, especially with the ability to punch with an off hand or with the shield.

 

[w00tage]

[what came out of it was a system that was hilariously easy to break.

The thing is, Bethesda has never been ones to care much about whether a system is breakable. They only make single player games so why avoid it?

I mean really, if breaking a system is bad and reduces enjoyment, why do it? I never really understood why people think just because the potential to break a system exists, they have to use it. No one FORCED you to sit there and sneak attack your companion. You did that yourself. If it reduced your enjoyment of the game, that's your own fault.


Personally, I like the fact that TES allows me to just play the way I want to play. More structured games are fun in their own right, but if I want to play the Witcher. I'll play the Witcher. No other game gives you the freedom TES does. That's why I play them.

Waitaminute, they DO force you to use the exploits. The perk system + the broken mechanics means that when you shape your character via perks, and the perk invokes the breakage, you are now forced to use it at least until you can level enough to change your character's direction. Which you shouldn't have to do.

Example, I wanted a sneaky light-armor Spellsword that had to use the situation, his wits, his crafting skills, and my melee ability to win against even opponents. So I went for the Trap Rune spell for situational purposes, got decent shield spells, skilled up Archery but didn't perk it, skilled up and somewhat perked Light Armor, crafted Exquisite stuff, and am now skilling 1h and Block. I'm also using combat realism mods that make NPCs fight smarter and better (and potions only give +regen instead of +attribute, and do NOT stack) so that melee combat is tough for him.

In other words, he should only be able to take on a superior enemy he's weakened with arrows and led through a Rune, and boss fights are really, really tough.

But I recently defeated 7 Falmor, the least of which I can't win against in a cold sword-and-board fight, in groups of two or three at a time, including being pinned in a corner and hammered by three at once.

How, you ask?

Spoiler

Trap Rune does no damage to you, only enemies. So instead of being a "trap" rune, it's an effective 50-point (or 120-some points two handed I think) point-blank AOE spell, and my spellsword can drop it 3x after getting all those +magicka items free from the College. So even pinned in a corner being beaten on by 3 Falmer, he was able to blow them away by dropping the runes at his own feet. It was close, but he lived, and he should not have won that one.

Worse, because Rune Master allows you to place Trap Runes 5x farther away, or about 40 feet away, it's now an effective RANGED AOE spell, allowing me to demolish another group of 4 Falmer before they could get 5 feet off of their initial position. Two dual cast and one single-cast Runes from 40 feet away and it was time to loot.

Was that my plan for my character? No.

Is it how I have to play him now until I get enough levels to change his style? Yes, because his investment towards Traps / Dual-Cast / Impact cost enough points to hold him back to where he can't range/melee 3 opponents, even on vanilla Adept settings.

So will any character that doesn't use broken OP mechanics be viable? ..... we'll see, but if my guy isn't able to complete equal-level stuff without using broken mechanics within another ten levels, I'm done with Skyrim and Bethesda. I'll find some other game to try.