Above: a hypothetical UI during combat: 1) The cool-down of the player’s active spells. 2) The player’s magicka reserve. 3) The player’s health. 4) The player’s health reserve. 5) The player’s stamina. 6) The player’s stamina reserve. 7) The current damage to the player’s maximum stamina. 8) The opponent. 9) The opponent’s health. Screenshot taken from the “Moonpath to Elsweyr” mod.

 

ARMOUR:

New Armour types include:

• Chain Mail that is effective against slashing weapons but ineffective against thrusting and projectile weapons.

 

Design & Materials:

In the case of armour, a particular design may extend to a range of materials. One may have a basic chain mail armour that comprises iron, steel, Dwarven metal, Orichalcum etc, affecting its tint, weight and armour rating. This is also the case with regional designs: Nordic plate armour could be made from iron or steel, for example.

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The materials comprising armour provide intrinsic benefits separate from enchantments:

• Daedric: Each article of armour increases Conjuration times by 25%. A complete Daedric armour set (helm, breastplate, gauntlets, boots) provides the player with unlimited Conjuration times (i.e. summons remain until the player banishes them or they are killed).

• Ebony: Each article of armour absorbs the first 10 damage points from incoming fire attacks. A complete Ebony armour set (helm, breastplate, gauntlets, boots) uses absorbed fire damage to charge ability / spell cool-down periods.

• Fur: Each article of armour or clothing absorbs the first 5 damage points from incoming frost attacks.

• Moonstone: Each article of Elven armour reduces spell cool-down by 5%. A complete Elven armour set (helm, breastplate, gauntlets, boots) reduces spell cool-down by 50%.

• Wood (Shield): When raised, insulates the player from 50% of any incoming shock damage.

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Weight categories:

The concept of “Light” and “Heavy” Armour is omitted in favour of a more organic system involving the player’s attributes. The heavier the armour, the greater the impact on the player’s dexterity, stamina and stealth. The lighter the armour, the less it protects the player.

 

There is also unique armour, called Super Heavy Armour, that requires a Strength attribute of between 75 and 100 to equip. Super Heavy Armour provides greater protection, but significantly slows the player’s movements and attacks, depletes stamina faster, and renders stealth all but useless. Zaddar, one of the player's essential companions, is strong enough to wear some Super Heavy Armours.

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BLOCK:

Improving the block skill allows the player to recover faster from blows and stagger less, allowing for more fluid counter attacks. A player proficient with shields can recover from a power blow to deliver a fatal counter strike of their own before the opponent can defend themselves. The player’s stamina drain is lessened from blows and bashes with practice. The amount of damage absorbed by shields does increase, but the quality of the shield itself tends to be the prevailing factor in this regard.

 

Dual Weapons:

Block and parry with light weapons by pressing the secondary action buttons. Dual light weapons provide less defence than a shield, a single light weapon even more so.

 

COMBAT STYLES & TACTICS:

Each type of enemy approaches combat differently. There are 'strong-and-stupid' enemies, like Trolls and Undead, that charge towards the target and attack relentlessly. They can be fearsome enemies in numbers, but also vulnerable to long-range combatants. Groups of enemies tend to display teamwork, attempting to circle the player, utilising their greater numbers tactically. Archers in particular are always trying to work a better angle.

 

Each enemy has strengths and weaknesses, requiring the player to think strategically. Destruction mages are light on their feet and formidable from distance, but largely forsaking armour, cannot survive any sort of melee, stealth or projectile attack. Trolls have great strength and regeneration abilities, but are almost comically slow, clumsy and critically weak to fire. The player is able to form a bestiary after encountering enemies, which describes their weaknesses.

 

Even the most lowly of bandits are conscious of their injuries in battle, and carry a range of regenerative potions into battle. The quality of their tonics, and how cannily they use them, is down to the enemy and the difficulty level.

 

COVER SYSTEM:

In combat or stealth, the player can press against surfaces and obstacles to enter cover. The player can also move swiftly from cover point to cover point. If using a projectile weapon, the player can lean from or rise above cover to fire (Refer Controls).

 

DAMAGE & ARMOUR RATING:

All NPCs have a locked 100 health points, which is bolstered by armour and shields. A strike to an unprotected vital area (head or torso) that inflicts 100+ damage will kill the NPC, regardless of level. A breastplate or helm with an armour rating of say 65, will absorb 65 of those 100 damage points, meaning two further blows to the NPC would be fatal. While a sword that inflicts 126 damage points seems impressive, against a breastplate with an armour rating of 125, the player would need to strike the NPC 100 times for a kill!

 

To redress this potential imbalance, the damage caused by weapons outweighs the protection provided by armour on the whole. There will however be circumstances in which a weapon cannot damage an enemy at all due to a vastly superior armour rating. Engaging an enemy in pristine ebony armour with a blunt iron dagger would be futile in reality, and so it is here, but there are ways around this:

• Weapons and armour come in varying conditions that affect damage-to-armour ratio.

• Attacks on unaware enemies provide bonus damage (see Feats).

• Strikes to the sides / back of an opponent provide bonus damage (125 / 150%, improves under Feats), benefiting a tactical or sneaky player. As an archer, it is vital to get in behind an opponent if possible, because shielded or heavily armoured opponents are tough to engage head on.

• A perk can improve power attacks or bash attacks to knock off an enemy's shield or helmet.

• High strength increases the damage output of power blows.

• Certain weapons are more or less effective against certain armour types. For instance, chain mail halves damage caused by slashing weapons, but its armour rating is halved against thrusting and projectile weapons. Thrusting weapons generally do not cause as much damage as slashing and chopping weapons, but ignore a certain amount of armour.

 

The intent behind this is to create a combat style closer to the fast-paced tactical combat enjoyed in other AAA-games and further from the button-mashing fare from previous Bethesda entries.

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To compensate for their lack of armour, creatures tend to have toughened hides or great mass, which act as a natural armour, and they often have more than 100HP as a result. Creatures like bears have colossal damage output and can cover large distances quickly, as well as requiring multiple hits to the torso.

 

DODGING:

By double-tapping the dodge button in the direction you are moving, the player will perform a dodge at the expense of some stamina. This is useful when facing an incoming power blow. If well-timed, the player can dodge, turn and then strike at the enemy's unprotected side or back. Dextrous players will enjoy sharper, swifter dodges.

 

IGNORE ARMOUR:

Only projectile and thrusting attacks (including some spells) ignore armour due to the high pressure of a pointed blow. Slashing and chopping weapons do not, though largely cause more damage. Note they no longer ignore a percentage of armour, but a fixed points amount that translates directly into damage to the target. With NPCs having a locked 100 HP, ignoring a percentage of armour would penalise those with a better armour rating. You could feasibly stab an enemy clad in top quality ebony armour and kill him because 100+ points of armour was ignored!

 

An example of how Ignore Armour works: If a non-thrusting weapon like an axe causes 142 points of damage against a breastplate with 118 armour rating, normally 24 points of damage would be inflicted on the target. But were it an equivalent thrusting weapon, like a rapier, that also ignores say 7 points of armour, the actual damage would be 31. With the relevant perk to double ignore armour points, the blow would cause 38 damage, a 63% bonus to the base damage of the weapon. The player can kill an enemy in three strikes instead of four, which lends a substantial tactical advantage.

 

The situation is different where a weapon could not normally damage superior armour at all. In this instance, the player would be guaranteed to cause the ignore armour damage of 7 or 14 points, regardless of how well the opponent is armoured. Ignore Armour is most useful in this example when giving the player an equaliser against a superior opponent.

 

Heavier weapons, like Spears and Arbalests, tend to ignore more armour points. The condition of the weapon also has a bearing. Note that the damage caused is small (between 1 and 15), as it is relative to the locked 100HP for a humanoid NPC.

 

INJURIES:

Bleeding wounds caused by slashing and chopping weapons alert predators by scent or blood spoors. The player is drained of HP and risks infection if left untreated. Close wounds with restorative magic, sutures & gauze (scars), or heated metal (scars). Temporary solutions include tree sap and mud (though the latter risks infection).

 

The consequences of allowing your HP to drain too much include:

• awakening stripped of your items in a bandit fort,

• rescued by a good Samaritan and nursed back to health.

 

The injuries accrued by the player manifest as scars, which may be healed in the school of Restoration. NPCs may suffer more grave injuries, like missing limbs.

 

LOCALISED DAMAGE:

Having wonderful protection to your head, arms and legs is worthless if an arrow punches through your thin hide breastplate. Each body part (head, chest, abdomen, left and right arms, left and right legs) has 100 health points. A critical hit to the...

• Head, Chest: Instant kill. A fatal slashing / chopping attack to the head will decapitate the enemy.

• Abdomen: Delayed kill. The opponent will bleed out after writhing on the ground for a time (finishing them beforehand is optional). Those however with a knowledge of restoration magic may heal themselves in this period.

• Arm: Disarms the target and renders that arm useless until healed. The target may free up their other arm in search of a dropped weapon. A one-armed NPC may try still to clumsily wield a heavy weapon in one hand.

• Leg: the enemy can only hobble, significantly reducing mobility, and cannot flee. Attacking the other leg causes the target to topple.

 

This model of combat places a focus on strategy and timing, in which stamina has a significant bearing. A tired enemy will swing a weapon clumsily and won't manoeuvre as well, presenting openings from the side and rear.

 

MARKSMAN:

There are four ranged weapon types: Bow, Longbow, Crossbow / Arbalest and Daggers. The bow acts in much the same way as bows in recent games. They are quicker to draw but cause less damage than a longbow, making them preferable in open combat. Projectile and thrusting weapons ignore a small amount of armour. A longbow is heavier and a slower draw, but the damage is greater. Longbows are excellent for sniping and ignore a higher amount of armour.

 

The advantage Crossbows have over bows is that once a bolt is loaded, it stays that way until the player fires. There are no stamina drains for aiming and zooming. The crossbow however has a slow reload action and therefore not as effective in mid-to-close range combat. Though all projectile weapons ignore a certain amount of armour, Crossbows and Arbalests ignore more than bows and Longbows.

 

Though used normally as quick melee weapons, a dagger can be thrown by holding the secondary attack button to aim and releasing to throw. Thrown daggers can almost always be retrieved from corpses, but are more expensive, have much less effective range and weigh more.

 

The best bows are made from a variety of wood. Why would a rigid material like Ebony or Glass make for a decent bow? Instead, the quality of the wood (e. g. bamboo, yew) and the string (animal gut, silk, linen) are the deciding factors. As a result, it is possible to harvest parts of the intestine from animals for use in the creation of bows.

 

Composite bows (when multiple woods are glued together) are an improvement on normal bows. Recurved bows have improved flexibility and power than traditional bows. Rare Dwarven bows that are assisted by pulleys at each end are amongst the most coveted in Tamriel, with the highest Ignore Armour points.

 

The Crossbow has a larger cousin in the Arbalest, the limbs of which are made of iron or steel. This weapon takes longer to reload but has greater strength. As with the longbow, an Arbalest is preferable for undetected snipe attacks.

 

Arrowheads:

The materials and designs used in arrowheads have different effects:

• Barbed: Causes bleeding damage when pulled out.

• Dwarven Stun Arrow: Upon impact, sends a jolt of electricity through the target, rendering them unconscious.

• Explosive: Explodes on impact, causing fire damage. The additional weight of this arrow affects trajectory.

• Fragmented: Held together by resin and coated in filth, this arrowhead is designed to fragment inside the body and cause infection.

• Silver: Especially effective against undead and werewolves.

 

Technique:

In previous titles, a novice archer can aim just as well as a master, only the damage output differs. In TES VI, the player's aiming reticule is unsteady at a low level and tightens up as the player improves the Marksman skill. The recoil from heavier bows is also lessened. This is to present the idea that the player's technique is genuinely lacking at novice level.

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SAVING:
The player is only allowed to quick save once in combat on normal or lower difficulties, and not at all on any difficulty level higher than that. This is to preserve a challenge in combat and to raise the stakes for the player.

 

SKILLS:

In previous titles, the only thing to delineate a novice swordsman from a master was damage output. While damage output improves by 0.5% per level, swing / draw speed also improve and stamina drain from power attacks is reduced. There is the tangible sense one's technique is improving.

 

While the relevant skill, say Light Weapons, has an effect on how well the player handles all light weapons, improving with specific weapon types (e. g.- Light Slashing, Heavy Blunt, Longbow) improves those particular weapon types faster than others. It allows players to specialise if they like.

 

STAMINA:

Stamina impacts combat dramatically. Low stamina penalises the player / NPC in the following ways:

• Weapon swings and bow draws are slower and more telegraphed.

• Power attacks are slower and clumsier, leaving the player vulnerable to side / back attacks.

• The player is more vulnerable to being staggered and toppled.

• The player does not dodge as elegantly.

• The effectiveness of all combat skills are penalised (Blocks being less effective, weapons causing less damage, aiming reticule widened etc).

 

UNARMED:

Grappling:

Simultaneously tapping both primary and secondary attack buttons during unarmed combat grapples the opponent, allowing for location-sensitive damage, such as slamming an opponent's head into a nearby table. The direction the player is moving while initiating the grapple alters the outcome, as does if the player is walking or sprinting.

 

Grappling is useful as an interrogation technique, allowing the player to slam a target against a wall or through obstacles, or even break limbs.

WEAPONS:

New Weapons include:

• Arbalest: A heavier and slower but more powerful version of the crossbow with an iron or steel prod. Best for sniping targets from range.

• Cestus: A glove covered in metal spikes with the intention of shredding flesh. Note beast races have claws and can slash their opponents by default, inflicting bleeding injuries.

• Cosh: The preferred weapon of thieves, this discreet club renders an unaware target unconscious. The damage output is the length of time in seconds that a target is knocked out, less the armour rating provided by headgear.

• Daggers / Spears: now serve as melee and thrown weapons (see Marskman).

• Dwemer Prod: A non-lethal weapon that stuns or incapacitates targets. Can be used to disable an automaton without destroying it. Prods have limited use and can be recharged with Dwemer power cores.

• Flail: Use blunt centrifugal force to stove in your enemy's skull.

• Polearms: Spears are heavy thrusting weapons. Glaives are heavy slashing weapons. Pollaxes are heavy chopping weapons. Light Spears can be thrown, under the Marksman skill.

• Rocks: A rock can be used as a weapon that causes great damage but breaks on impact against armour. Can also be used to bash locks based on strength and be thrown as weapons or distractions. Rocks are also used with tinder to create camp fires. Strong characters can lift heavier rocks.

 

Weapon Types:

Weapons divide into four sub-types. In the case of light or heavy weapons, the four sub-types are: slashing (Examples: Katana, Glaive), thrusting (Examples: Rapier, Spear), chopping (Examples: Axe, Pollaxe) and blunt (Examples: Mace, Warhammer). The sub-types of Marksman are: bow, longbow, crossbow / Arbalest, throwing weapon.

 

Each sub-type has advantages and disadvantages against certain enemies and armour. For example, a slashing attack against an enemy wearing chain mail armour will only produce 50% base damage, but a thrusting or projectile attack will produce 150% base damage (and also ignore some armour).

 

Slashing and chopping weapons can inflict bleeding injuries which drain the enemy of health. Some weapons carry dual functions. While a Katana is predominantly a slashing weapon, one of its power attacks is a forwards thrust.

 

An advantage thrusting / projectile weapons have over other types is the inherent ability to ignore a small part of armour due to the high pressure of a pointed blow. This can be particularly useful as it guarantees your blows will cause some damage, even against the best armour.