The Elder Scroll's series.

[Denamic]

What I've done is getting T3nd0s Skyrim Redone.
It makes the combat system infinitely better. No more power attack spamming, and weapon types actually handles differently. Holding the block button is no longer invulnerability mode. Magic is revamped, not only with new spells, but with new ways to play. Like wearing a shield in your left and a spell in your right, spell in left, weapon in right (now with actual benefits), staves can now benefit your other spellcasts, etc. Useless skill trees are now made useful, like speech having perks that affect shouts.

The best part is how the combat has much more importance on managing stamina. Blocking costs a shitload of stamina, but a timed block reduces the cost, increases the damage reduction, and may stagger your enemy. Getting hit without blocking causes bleeding and an armor debuff. Overall, the combat gets much more involved. Running in swinging is no longer really viable. At least not on adept difficulty and above.

 

[Windcaler]

What I've done is getting T3nd0s Skyrim Redone.
It makes the combat system infinitely better. No more power attack spamming, and weapon types actually handles differently. Holding the block button is no longer invulnerability mode. Magic is revamped, not only with new spells, but with new ways to play. Like wearing a shield in your left and a spell in your right, spell in left, weapon in right (now with actual benefits), staves can now benefit your other spellcasts, etc. Useless skill trees are now made useful, like speech having perks that affect shouts.

The best part is how the combat has much more importance on managing stamina. Blocking costs a shitload of stamina, but a timed block reduces the cost, increases the damage reduction, and may stagger your enemy. Getting hit without blocking causes bleeding and an armor debuff. Overall, the combat gets much more involved. Running in swinging is no longer really viable. At least not on adept difficulty and above.

The issue with mods comes in the form of consoles. They cant download and mod their games like we can on PC and now that they can play TES games on their consoles I believe they have just as much place in these discussions as PC gamers like me. That said there are two ways to approach a combat improvement and the first, and perhaps easiest for bethesda, is to redesign the combat system to be a much more engaging one. The other way is to give consoles players that ability to mod their games just as we can do it on PC.

Im fine with using mods to improve a game or just change it in interesting ways but IMO something as horrible as Skyrims combat either needs to improved across the board or tools given to everyone that can play it to improve it themselves

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

First person view is non-negotiable -- it's what makes the games work. It's a core element of the series by now and giving it up would in effect be abandoning the series entirely.

I feel the TES series has always followed the mantra: combat's cool, but shouldn't be the primary reason why people play the game.

If they really wanted to break with that paradigm and double-down on first person combat, it'll be tough. There are a couple series they could learn from, one being Zeno Clash and the other being Mount and Blade.

Here are some of the challenges they'll have to address:
1.) How to model weapon and shield collision at a sufficiently detailed level and to produce feed back that makes sense. If your sword bounces back off of a shield, how do you deal with the fact that your mouse can't track that and also move in the opposite direction, for example.
2.) Aside from the collision problem for controls, imagine the granularity that would be required of combat animations. A believable system would require -- almost -- animations for every possible sort of sword/axe-arm motion.
3.) How to turn two-dimensional inputs (from a mouse) into three dimensional outputs in the 3D game world (for example, how do you input a thrust? A diagonal parry?). Do they have to fundamentally redesign the interface and change first person combat into something utterly new and alien to most gamers?
4.) How to integrate the two above problems with multiple attackers (which even third-person view games do poorly) and character movement?

Short of creating from scratch a combat-centered physics and input engine that breaks entirely with anything gamers have ever seen before, I don't think these types of problems can be addressed. Sure, they could go for it... and maybe now they have the budget to do it. But it would be safer to go with the "good enough, compensate elsewhere" approach.

 

[shadow_Fox81]

i think the melee particularly should look at first person brawler genre, particularly condmened criminal origins.

if the player pitched and buckled under the blows of a physical frontal assault (or ranged ones) and the player character became vocally and physically distressed each melee would feel that much more harrowing. more contextual and timed based moves similar to comdemed blocking system and Dark Mesiah combat on would asist in this also.

better ai is a given, but simply making them actively flank the player would be enough to make them so.

finally and most importantly the game needs to move away from gear based gameplay, better gear should not equal a stronger character but simply augment chances of surviving a given encounter.

the player should not inherit godhood through their gear, it was laughable that my character was able to complete the mage guild quest line with no magical abilities above level 10.

 

[carpathic]

I have absolutely NO DESIRE to combat be any harder in TES games. Already Archery is nearly useless for me, on a console I just can't track the baddies fast enough.

Seriously? Have you tried upping the sensitivity? I don't want to be patronising but that shouldn't be happening.

OP: I'd support the combat being much more deep. I quite liked fable's system, where a spell would be aoe normally but become a fireball or other ranged effect if you targeted something. I'm not saying that Skyrim should have the same system, but something where magic alters based on context would be cool, and mean you could do a lot of stuff with just one spell equipped.

How about spell charge levels? Let's say you've got a generic 'fire' spell equipped.
Charge lvl 1: You fire off a small fireball by briefly tapping the button
Lvl 2: You fire off a more potent fireball by holding the button then releasing. Instead of releasing, you can also tap circle to release it as a weak aoe type attack.
Lvl3: More powerful version of lvl 2, with the addition that you can now zoom using L2 (or something) to make it a fast moving 'sniper' style attack

By using a system like this with lots of permutations on the same basic attack type, you could conceivably perform every possible fire type attack without having to change your equipped spell once.

Melee needs an overhaul too. I think my problem with it is that it feels too floaty. It should be brutal and crunchy, again, more context stuff could be used for variety too.

It totally is not about the game, I am just not very good at the prediction of where the baddies are going to be. Magic I am fine with (though fireballing a moving dragon can be trying at times). Archery just rarely works for me on a moving target. As I said, I have no interest in combat being harder. Combat is ancillary to my enjoyment of the game. I like playing a character who starts as a mewling kitty and ends up a god. The part of elder scroll games that matter to me is solely the story and the character evolution. If I wanted dead souls, or a combat shooter or whatever I would buy those games.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

I wouldn't do anything to improve something that's already perfect.
It became perfect after the diceroll misses were removed.

And I'd never sacrifice the Sires Person perspective. Except at those times when I juts want to look at my character, but you can just hit the F key to switch camera modes, so that's not even remotely an issue.

As for being hindered by the controller... I have no idea what you're talking about, since I use mouse and keyboard and it works perfectly.
But then, I've got no backwards flying dragons...
(Not anymore at least... I think they went extinct in my game...)