Skyrim's combat and the action RPG genre Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
I have no problems with it. Frankly, I actually like it. It's not as flashy or (honestly) satisfying as The Witcher or Amalur, but it is better grounded. For me that counts for a lot. Every fight feels organic and real. Not realistic, mind, but real in it feels like it's actually happening. It has to do with the presentation really. A lot of games disconnect the combat from the rest of the game, so it almost feels like they're part of different games/realities. Dragon Age 2 was the worst culprit. Every fight in Skyrim feels authentic. That's why I like it. Sure, the mechanics and animations aren't perfect, but neither do they get in the way while I'm playing. Mediocre combat that is well presented is more desirable (imo) than good combat poorly presented. | |
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. | |
TES isn't multiplayer, people don't care if you break your game, plenty of people play the game normally. Have fun getting killed by everything because you levelled nothing but sneak by the way. | |
How I wish I could delete double posts... | |
I thought I would address this for a moment. If I could pick only one thing that I could hate about World of Warcraft, it would be that it either started or popularized the idea that we should be able to reset our character's abilities on a whim in a role playing game, and that any game that doesn't allow you to is shit. If I was playing D&D and told my DM that I wanted to scratch all my feats and start my character over again, he'd tell me I should just roll up a new character if I wanted to do that. Now I understand the feature's existence in an MMO: those fuckers can't leave game balance alone for 2 weeks, so why should you get stuck with a build that has suddenly become broken due to developer fiat? But in a game that doesn't change(beyond patches fixing technical problems)? Well I'm not going to complain if the feature exists(I can ignore it after all), but it most certainly shouldn't be considered a flaw that a game actually makes you decide on something and have that decision stick. Hell, if you have the PC version you can just use the console to remove the old perks and give yourself the ones you want. Okay. Minirant over. | |
With Bethesda, it's more like you have to go out of your way to try and find out how NOT to break the game. Their rpg mechanics/leveling system is so fucked up and ass backwards. Like with Oblivion, you had to pick your major skills as ones you really didn't want to be your main ones, otherwise you would over level yourself, because everything levels with you...Just complete and udder nonsensical retardation. I don't think Skyrim has quite the same problems, but it's Bethesda, I'm sure it has other ones. Their whole more you use it, the better you get at it system makes sense realistically, but just doesn't translate well AT ALL to a high fantasy rpg. (where realism shouldn't be a focus anyway) | |
Honestly I like Skyrim's combat. It feels weighty and gritty. Honestly I don't know where this "I feel like I'm not hitting anything" nonsense is coming from because the only time I feel that is when I'm fighting a dragon. Everything else feels very satisfying to bring a warhammer down onto. Sure the combat isn't as good as action RPG's but that is to be expected because that's not what Skyrim is really about. It's about the world and then being whatever you want to be in that world. I can see how this doesn't jive for some but this is the best kind of game for me. | |
It's pretty terrible. Much better the oblivion, good enough to be palatable, but not good enough to be truly enjoyable on its own. - Third person, where you're aiming isn't always where the fireball/arrow will go. | |
The only GMs that don't allow me to adjust a feat or skillpoint distribution that is not working out at all for my characters in games like D&D are generally assholes. The problem with Skyrim isn't a lack of total perk-point reset, but a complete lack of any redistribution of perks. Honestly... I couldn't stand Dark Soul's combat, and the only thing I liked about it over Skyrim's was the ability to land on enemy's heads with my sword. Sword+Board and Two-handed weapons were very fun in Skyrim.
Actually... I find the passive improvement of commonly-used abilities to be the best skill system ever seen in an RPG. I'm not sure what "Action-RPGs" have a better combat system than Skyrim's - I like the absolute control I have over my character. The only complaint I have about it is the inability to tap the "Sprint" button in a direction other than forward to move quickly out of the way. | |
two words: bow, stealth. you dont even have to run to them and smash the attack button. plus some people have problems with the first person perspective since it becomes hard to evaluate the distance. that was one of the 'problems' that people also had with zeno clash. | |
Take your pick ? | |
I hated Morrowind's combat, thought Oblivion's was alright, and liked Skyrim's. It's not as reactionary as it could be, but it still felt weighty and satisfying. I mostly played with a bow and arrow though, so nailing someone with a well-timed shot and seeing their body rag-doll may be more interesting than hitting someone's shield a lot. I wish they'd let you choose whether you had a first or third-person kill-cam though.
Have you played Skyrim?
You shouldn't ever have the ability to put points into everything. Permanency is a lost art. Your whole post makes it sound like you're coming at it from a MMORPG perspective actually, which is... odd. I mean sure, you could grind your sneak up, but no one's going to do that unless they really want to, and the only person it's ever going to affect is you. I'm not sure the obsession with everything being perfectly balanced is inherently a good one when it comes to single-player. Oddities that only a few people are going to stumble upon just adds that extra bit of character. | |
As others have said, it's better than the other TES games, but it's still not great, and there's a very obvious reason why: the first-person viewpoint. Any game which tries to do extensive melee combat from first-person always ends up feeling unwieldy, messy and just downright wrong. "But j-e-f-f-e-r-s, in real life, historical soldiers used to fight battles all the time without the aid of a third-person viewpoint. Why can't first-person games emulate the sort of combat real knights and real soldiers used to engage in?" A very good question. And there is a very simple answer to that. If I were to actually engage in a sword fight in real life, I'd have several key advantages that my character in Skyrim does not. While I may be fighting from the perspective of through my eyeballs as in TES, in real life I have the advantage of a ridiculously large field of view. Simply by snapping my neck from left to right, I can get a 180 degree view of the battlefied and any enemy combatants in my immediate area, all in the space of a second. In Skyrim, I have to use the analogue stick to move my entire character from one direction to the other to get the same kind of view. Not only that, but my eyeballs by themselves present a much larger space than even the largest HD tellybox or PC monitor, meaning spacial awareness in real life is far better than anything a FP game can achieve. More importantly, if I notice someone approaching me from my left, I can move my body instantly while keeping eyes on them to react to their attack. If I were a master swordsman, I'd be able to fend off multiple foes by parrying off one attack while having eyes on another attacker and anticipating their move as well. in Skyrim and other FP melee games, again this is impossible. The action is limited to what is right on the screen, and your body is glued to the direction that the character is looking. If someone attacks you from the side, there's no way to know until they've already got their knife in your ribs. In real life, I have a much better awareness of my body and the space it is occupying, meaning I am able to tailor my attacks based on where my body is and how it is currently positioned, as well as how and where my enemies are positioned. FP videogames unfortunately use a set of strict animations that play out regardless of positioning, meaning that if a character is slightly to the left, your character doesn't automatically widen their attack arc to make sure they hit them. Your character instead just swings at air. Lastly, in real life, I am able to radically change direction, including doing a complete 180 and facing any enemies coming from behind if I see them trying to sneak up on me. In Skyrim and other FP games, movement is tied to the direction you're facing, meaning a 180 turn requires that your character strafe and spin all the way round to the other direction. As far as melee combat goes, I'm a firm believer that third-person will beat first-person any day of the week. You only have to look at the range of moves and skills Dark Souls is able to implement by using a third-person perspective, such as the much needed 'roll' move, to see how much better combat can flow when the player is presented with a full view of their character and the space surrounding them, not just the limited FOV that the first-person perspective offers. If Bethesda were to announce that melee combat in the next TES game is done solely from third-person perspective, I know that millions of fanboys would start bitching and moaning, but I for one would celebrate it. First-person melee is an experiment developers have kept working on for decades now, but the sad fact is that it just hasn't worked. In the same amount of time that it has taken developers to give us 'acceptable' first-person melee, we've seen other developers advance the third-person action format from simple 2D sidescroller to the likes of Devil May Cry 3, Ninja Gaiden Black, Demon's/Dark Souls, Bayonetta, and a whole host of other incredible swordplay focused games. That doesn't mean that games like Skyrim need combat as over the top as DMC, but it does show that third-person is a much better platform for allowing developers to create freeflowing, responsive, fun melee combat. When you can't even see the majority of your sword swing in Skyrim because it's been cut off by the side, top and bottom of your TV screen, you know that the first-person perspective just isn't conducive to great melee games. | |
You can decapitate people with blunt weapons and the animations for killing dragons look bad, but that's about it. | |
My thoughts exactly, I liked (moreso than vanilla skyrim anyway) weaving in and out of attack range and smacking an enemy with a claymore, wearing only light armour so I had to get out before being hit. Skyrim's combat was unplayable for me until I got mods for it. Now If I don't block attacks, I'm likely to die (2 2h hits will kill me for example without blocking). I also get staggered from taking direct hits, same goes for the enemy. Made the combat fairly intense. So to answer you, without mods no, Oblivions' beats Skyrim's combat. Both run miles around Morrowwind, but that's a given, since Morrowwind's combat is absolute arse. Better combat? See most other action RPGs.
The writings a weird one with Skyrim, it's like they had some master writing plan and just... stopped. There's grey vs grey decisions everywhere, which don't amount to anything, and there's a fuck ton of essential NPCs everywhere. Want to join Mjoll and clean up Riften? Nope, Maven Black-briar is essential for the whole game, Riften's fucked forever. Want to clean out those Stormcloak camps on your way to the next mountain to hike? Nope, all the generals are immune. Want to clear out both factions in Markath since neither of them are at all desirable? Nope, arbitrary choice... et cetera. They sacrificed the sandbox for badly done narrative, don't understand. They | |
Has anyone here played Pirates, Vikings and Knights 2? It's a Half Life 2 mod with fantastic first person combat. It has features Skyrim lacks like directional blocking, counterattacks, and more "powerful" feeling weapons. Every time you slash someone with your sword, blood spurts out and there's an extremely satisfying sound effect of flesh being split to accompany each strike. The combat in that game is much more tight then Skyrim, and maybe Skyrim could learn a thing or two from it. | |
Totally agree. First person perspective is not conducive towards good melee combat. Yet there has still been older games than Skyrim, like Dark Messiah and Condemned which has done it much better. | |
Not a fan of it, it is just too clunky and doesn't feel more than I press button and we check damage values, rinse and repeat. | |
I messed around with it for a little at a friends house, enough to know that the combat still doesn't feel right at all, but not enough to the intricacies of the leveling systems. I have read about it somewhat and also know how Bethesda rolls when it comes to these things. | |
They may have done it better, but I personally think that even those examples provide combat that is only serviceable at best. Condemned should perhaps get a free pass. It's always marketed itself as a survival-horror game, so it makes sense that the combat should feel a little unwieldy and restrictive. If you're able to start chaining together massive combos, then it would start losing some of that 'survival' element. Which is actually another thing I forgot to mention: pretty much any FP melee game I've ever played has lacked any sort of combo system, despite the fact that third-person melee games integrate combos into their fighting engines as standard. In Ninja Gaiden, if I swing my sword twice, then the first strike is completed with a follow-up move. If I swing my sword thrice, then I will get a chain of connected attacks that do big damage. In Skyrim, trying to do multiple attacks simply means that my character waves his sword around like a loon, without any form of structure to his attacks. Part of the problem, I think, is the tendency of developers using first-person to stick to the shooter template and to use the right trigger as the attack button. Now, while notable third-person games have done very well using the trigger to attack (Dark Souls), there is a reason most third-person action games use the face buttons to attack instead. By using buttons, you can have different inputs for different attacks, ie- strong attack, weak attack. This is a vital component in allowing the player to build up combos and to try out different moves. A light attack followed by another light attack will be very different to a light attack followed by a heavy attack, to use a simple example. In TES, all you're doing in combat is mashing on the right-trigger. And while you can mix things up by lurching the analogue stick left or right, there simply isn't that variation of input which allows games like DMC and God Of War to rack up combos and create fluid combat. I think it says it all that, for me, the first-person segment at the end of GOW3 controls infinitely better than any Elder Scrolls game I've ever played. | |
Well archery is pretty fun, but melee combat is still pretty borked. The weapons dont seem to hit anything, and none of the enemies react to your blows at all aside from the occasional grunts. It's not bad I guess, everything works the way it was supposed to more-or-less, but it's still a major step backwards from Fallout: New Vegas. | |
That game is the best, I was just playing it. Can't wait for the 2 new classes to come out. OT: I quite liked morrowinds combat, it had directional strikes. Skyrim would be better with Atributes and stuff, making it more RPG-y. Or just remake Morrowind in Skyrim, but just for better graphics, animations, combat, 'n such. | |
I'll be honest, if your stance is that you just don't like 1st person melee combat, we will never see eye to eye. I'm not fond of 3rd person perspectives in games that place action above strategy, and I never will be. It annoys the piss out of me when I try to sneak along a wall in Deus Ex: HR and it switches me into third person. Just sucks the immersion right out. Although the shooting itself is pretty balls, one of my favorite action games is Mirror's Edge, partially because the devs for that game seem to be the only ones looking to push the use of first person perspective past where it's been since Quake. If you find yourself swinging at air in Skyrim, the problem is not with Skyrim, but with your unfamiliarity with the game in that perspective. I've never had such a problem, and I haven't had any problems with situational awareness. The problems I have with Skyrim's combat are mechanical in nature, not based on the series chosen perspective. | |
No TES combat has and probably always will be shit. Skyrim improved it in some ways but took massive step backs in others and I would never ever applaud a TES for its combat but they are trying to go in the right direction. | |
It could be that I don't know what an Action-RPG is. None of the Diablo Clones come close, nor do any MMORPGS, or games like Two Worlds, Kingdoms of Amalur, The Witcher, and Previous TES games. It could just be that Skyrim plays awesome on the Gamepad and sucks on Keyboard+Mouse. | |
Yea,it does sound like you don't know what an ARPG is. I would compare Skyrim's combat to other action rpgs like Witcher 2, Amalur, Dark/Demon Souls, Dark Messiah, Gothic games (or even action games for that matter)... NOT loot whoring games like Diablow or MMO type gameplay. | |
I've... not been impressed by Dark Messiah, missed out on Demon Souls, Found Dark Souls to be annoyingly clunky, convoluted and overall shitty, haven't had a chance to play the Witcher 2 yet (Because the first game was absolute shit), and grew bored of the Gothic games as well. So yeah, I'm not sure what ARPGs have "Good" combat. | |
Your the first person I've EVER heard say they think Skyrim has better combat than the Souls games. Or that Skyrim is the best the genre has to offer, as far as combat goes. There's always a first though ! Even the biggest ES fans admit that combat isn't exactly the strength of the games. | |
I'm not saying the combat system's perfect, or even good. I'm just saying that everything else out there manages to be worse | |
I agree that most ARPGS combat is pretty weak. But I totally disagree that Skyrim or Oblivion are better than the others. And btw, the Witcher 2's combat is completely different from the timing your clicks nonsense of the first Witcher game. | |
I loved Skyrims combat, people are just hard to please these days (patiently awaiting news about the upcoming crossbow) | |
1. It's fine for games like Skyrim. I like it simple (for games like Skyrim). | |
Or some ppl could be very easy to please. I guess it just depends on your experience with other games. | |
Really REALLY hope that this pans out... and oh Lord have mercy it they make it dual wieldable (would be massively OP, but I'd love a rogue character with a wrist/hand fired crossbow and longsword combo).
Regular crossbows will be just as welcome though. As for Skyrims melee? Relative to other games with melee orientation, it's pretty basic, though not unbearable. Can get a bit monotonous. But relative to the overall package I can't complain, I've sunk many blades, axes and warhammers into the flesh of many a raider and I still feel satisfied with it. Because I mix my classes (like my favoured Spellsword) I find the ability to switch combat techniques on the fly to be very good at staving off monotony.
Actually, i'd say it's a bit a both here. While it's a fair comparison between the witcher 2 and Skyrim in that we have one series that went from shitty combat to good combat within 2 games, and another that gradually improved a clunky system over multiple releases, but still hasn't reached any remarkable standard, we seem to be forgetting how awful EVERYTHING was in vanilla Oblivion and morrowind (i swear people confuse mods with actual content from those games). The benefit of attributes aside, magic and stealth classes were overwhelmingly boring and ranged combat in general was a remarkably dull affair (worse then the melee). The only highlight was how satisfying a hunting simulator Oblivion was... I loved killing bambee over and over again. Skyrim vastly improved stealth and Magic, to make them enticing as pure classes rather then mixing classes just to avoid death by boredom. I have never played more then a couple of hours as a pure mage in any TES other then skyrim (which has clocked 80+ hours as a pure mage). While it's not the best on offer in comparison to some other games, it is vastly more satisfying. It's also the first TES where I would even consider a pure archer role. But not only that, Melee WAS improved, just that it still feels off ever so slightly and lacks any great variety. Considering how the other classes got such massive improvements, I can't help but feel somewhat lenient towards the imperfect melee. Fingers crossed TES6 (or maybe future patches?) get a tighter and more satisfying formula brewing. | |
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I like what they tried to do with the leveling system, that is, allowing the player to do what they wanted to do, but what came out of it was a system that was hilariously easy to break.
Just as an example, I was able to grind a character to about level 17 and 70+ sneak in the tutorial by getting to the bear bit, sneaking and sneak attacking the ally. Since he never dies, you can grind to infinity, and I only stopped because I was getting bored. That, and the fact that you will never have enough points to put into everything you want, and then not implementing some kind of function that regains your perk points should be outlawed.