Why is the combat in the TES games so bad?

[Rblade]

meh, it's a first person rpg. Unless you make it turnbased you cannot expect a balanced and interesting combat system with a game where you can create your own class, spells and weapons. All you can do is try and make it look cool which I think they did pretty decendly.

It's all about exploration of the world and npc's. finding the little stories in the world and making your own. And then there is loot hoarding. My mansion at Bal Isra is completely decked out with "TEH EPIXZ"

I always wonder what games people are comparing TES to when they say the combat sucks. And if it is something like assassins creed you get disqualified for missing the point.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Or play Mass Effect 1. Goddamn that game is a mess.

The load-out/inventory was a pain, poorly managed with a painful interface, particularly for modding gear. As for combat, it's a shooter, so it's much easier to make a satisfying experience vs. melee (and I felt BW made ME guns/powers interesting on top of that). Had its flaws but I felt it hung in there.

But just comparing combat (and admittedly Skyrim is the only TES game I've played) if that's one of the better examples, holy crap I do not want to play any other game in the series. I can forgive a lot for good adventure, lore and design, and I really stuck it out with Skyrim for what it got right, but good lord was the combat atrocious, made even worse by the absurd companion, inventory and UI design.

Not saying combat can kill a game for me (there was so much more wrong with Skyrim), but devs should learn that, for the love of making a game, you don't need focus so much on combat; stick with what you can get right and make it a better game.

 

[Sande45]

I always wonder what games people are comparing TES to when they say the combat sucks. And if it is something like assassins creed you get disqualified for missing the point.

Chivalry, Mount & Blade, and Dark Messiah all have pretty similar combat with a much more skill-based and rewarding system. Chivalry is an excellent example of how a first person game can have great melee combat, M&B demonstrates that you can have role playing and skills that matter while also keeping the gameplay meaningful, and Dark Messiah does environmental interactions way better than TES despite being almost a decade old. TES really has no excuses, except that old "but it does so many things that it's reasonable it does nothing well".

 

[Pink Gregory]

I blame the engine, Fallout's combat is pretty bad too. And I'm just talking about the guns, the melee is the worst I think I've ever seen. Whatever Gamebryo was designed for, it wasn't first-person combat...or physics...or simulating a bunch of objects at once...or...what the hell is that thing's strength?!

Civilization IV runs on the Gamebryo engine.

Not sure if that means anything.

 

[axillarypuma]

Why is the combat in the TES games so bad? Well, because of one simple fact: it isn't. It's gameplay, and a great deal of people consider it solid. I'm sorry you don't like it, but your opinion is as subjective as mine, and millions of fans back me up. In the game of subjectivity, the majority rules. I'm tired of these "what I don't like is shit" threads. Seriously.

I am sorry if I offended you, but I never implied the TES games were bad and I never said that people had to agree with my opinion, I made this thread to know what kept people playing for so long, I mean did you even read what I said? And if you're tired of these posts, then why the fuck did you even bother to comment?

 

[gamernerdtg2]

So I've been wondering how do people play this stuff so much? don't get me wrong I love killing dragons and monsters and exploring as much as the next guy BUT the thing that just keeps me away from playing is how AWFULLY bad the combat is, I mean hitting things doesn't feel right, there's no variety in combat, specially melee combat, you just hit your target like a 3 year old with a stick.

I'm not asking for super deep combat but COME ON, it's just awful, the movements look unnatural.

So what keeps you playing for so long?

I rented Skyrim and never went back. I absolutely agree with you and I fail to understand why a game as huge as Skyrim has such terrible combat. If we're talking about the PC version, you can modify whatever you want and make it better.
But "vanilla" Skyrim on the consoles baffles me in terms of the combat.

The only thing I've heard about the game that's worth playing it for is: The huge world, the ability to do what you want (sandbox factor) looting for different species of plants and whatever.

Skyrim and Metal Gear Solid are the most frustrating games I've ever played as a gamer - and I've played some horribly broken games.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Spoiler: Shoggoth2588 quote

I like the exploration more than the combat and even when I do fight, I favor a sneaky sort of theif/assassin. I didn't play much of Skyrim when compared to Oblivion because I felt like I was discouraged from exploring too much in Skyrim: in another thread I mentioned that in Skyrim, you can find the "back doors" of dungeons fairly easily (more easily than in Oblivion anyway) but you would know you had entered one of these 'back doors' because within 10 to 20 paces you would come up against a door that was locked and unable to be picked. Part of what I loved about Oblivion was stumbling into a half-hidden door to find that, Hey! This is the ass-end of a dungeon and I just found reward-ish stuff!

As for the combat, there really isn't much weight behind it. Sure, Bethesda tried: swinging an axe is made to look like you're swinging a big, heavy thing but making contact with an enemy isn't very satisfying. Enemies don't need to fly back a kilometer for me to feel powerful but like what OP said, most melee combat feels like you're just waving a stick around until the big-bad falls over.

So you get my point right? I don't need a super fantastic combat system with fancy combos and shit, just make the combat a little more tactical or just make swords and melee weapons actually feel like what they are.

YES dude. YES. Thank you for starting this thread!

 

[Ieyke]

So I've been wondering how do people play this stuff so much? don't get me wrong I love killing dragons and monsters and exploring as much as the next guy BUT the thing that just keeps me away from playing is how AWFULLY bad the combat is, I mean hitting things doesn't feel right, there's no variety in combat, specially melee combat, you just hit your target like a 3 year old with a stick.

I'm not asking for super deep combat but COME ON, it's just awful, the movements look unnatural.

So what keeps you playing for so long?

The gameplay is terrible for the same reasons the NPC animations are terrible. The game is built on a badly disguised 16 year-old game engine.