skeithgaming

No I'm not asking for anything flashy as hell here, I'm just curious about the nonverbal taunts that are in vanilla that the npc's use in combat. Surely these can be transferred back on to the player? There are few things more satisfying than taunting an enemy and letting them get a few hits in, even if it has no actual effect on the game mechanics because "ha, killed you anyway idiot". Level of possibility on a 1 to 10 scale? I work with numbers mods now (think: XKCD), not this kind of stuff. (I also admittedly keep all of those mods to myself since I only ever finish them to be working and not "feature complete").

Before I get to quoting, let me just put this forward: What strict advantage do you have with DW? An open hand can grapple and control an opponent or reinforce a swing, a shield can relegate the sword to be more focused on being an attacking weapon or it can also be used to cause concussive blows to the enemy which can disorient / break bones, but the only gain a second blade can give is another cut (provided you do hit with both). It doesn't offer more strict control or defense, only potential offense, which is why it is so risky. Additionally, DW subtracts the amount of force each weapon can deal especially when swinging both at once, which is much easier to feel than to say. It's also why the Sai are able to be used in two hands as they are a very defensive weapon by design, but they are not meant for cutting which also changes the dynamic of using two of them. For a fighting example, if you are DW and you manage to get in close to your opponent, you will very likely have one weapon that can do a very quick but less powerful attack and another that can do a more powerful otherwise normal speed attack, but if you use both you subtract the time and force from both. Yet, you are at the same time to grab your opponent, so physically dropping/throwing the sword in the opportunistic hand can let you take control of part of your opponent and can give you the time you need to get the few cuts in that will bleed your opponent out or seriously injure them to be followed up with a "free" killing blow afterward. This applies to a target moving to you or you moving to them. Notice how this scenario did not require the secondary blade (or a shield). In the case of the shield, you could bash your opponents opening to keep that area exposed. Moving along. By the same logic, Ye Old is a modern term. In the early ages of the printing press, we had a lot of warring and a lot of technicalities. One of the original letters of what we have found as the oldest English alphabet included Þ or "Thorn" (some languages still use this, it's not a "dead letter"). At the time, printing presses did not have a stamp for Þ, so it was instead replaced with the closest thing Y (complicated). This made Þe Old (The Old) turn into Ye Old which still means the same thing. So we replaced a term that was used in the English language for a long time with another one that means exactly the same thing. It is not more modern. Additionally, in order to describe the process of using two weapons in each hand a language will almost always converge on a term. What was used to describe using one Sai versus using two Sai? I've no idea, but there was a the very least slang for it - a term for it. It unfortunately is indeed not modern. Also, the word "vitriol" is still used in place of sulfuric acid, which is also used in place of H2SO4 which much more accurately describes what we are talking about. Semi-correct. You only need one blade to let the opponents slide off, not two. This is best seen in two handed sword fighting as the movements are more clear. Using both weapons can cause the "unfolding scissors" style effect and has the same sort of logic as blocking with a sword and a shield at the same time. The issue is what exactly do you do with the other sword during this time. You don't have the ability to put any of your body into the attack as moving during the parry might very well open you up, so you're limited to a very basic cut with the second weapon. I'll simply use the first bit of my post as a reference here without copy/pasting it. Pray tell, what is a "static block"? I don't seem to understand you here. Otherwise this statement is correct. Stopping the attack and redirecting it are one in the same. By moving the attack away from you or moving away from the attack, it has been stopped. The point of the unfolding motion from using two blades to stop one is that it was unnecessary (see above). If you focus both blades into - I'll word it more "properly" - preventing the strike from connecting, at the very least you're wasting a blade. Now if by the term you are using "static block" you mean a bind where one or both opponents have stopped, then maybe I am understanding this term more. However, I've yet to know of a fighting style that does stop moving outside of a bind. The pause is often short during the bind, but a blade on either side will attempt to move the opponents blade in the desired direction, often with each side reacting to each others attempted deflection. As for breaking an arm when preventing a strike form connecting, outside of a war hammer making contact like a head of a nail or a good swing of a gothic mace, breaking a bone is excessively difficult on a shield, especially since many were designed around this literally never happening. Similar to the face of a sword, the shield is designed to make the opponents attack slide off rather than make full contact. Please don't act righteous and moral and then say these things at the same time. I don't refrain from being quite impolite when a thread gets hijacked, but I don't assume knowledge without evidence of the lack thereof or level insults unless otherwise warranted. I say I can't take Matt seriously and I say he does not know what he is talking about in that video because he has poured through evidence, bought rather nice blades that match his topic(s) and failed to understand the underlying principles. I didn't say he didn't know what he was doing out of the hostile reaction to a counterpoint. I laughed at the video because it was insulting itself more as it progressed, which was funny in a sad way to me. The first bit where you called me a moron I already touched on, but The problem is that it leaves you very open and to what advantage this stance may have I am very unsure and am skeptical of. Yes, I did watch the video and yes I did pay attention. While overly aggressive, there are a lot of truths to be had here. First, Lloyd is far obsessed with bows, but I wouldn't go as far to say he is an idiot. Second, if you read my bit about projectiles in general involving instant deaths, that's my fault as I miscommunicated. So more accurately: A regular bow will not pose as much of a threat to an armored opponent unless they strike an open area (which with most armors would be by sheer luck), however they can still provide the historical equivalent of covering fire or if against a less armored opponent an arrow can still cause bleedouts or sever tendons (if not more). Longbows however don't have that 80lbs draw strength and a few inches of draw length, instead they have hundreds of pounds in draw strength and could be drawn back a few feet, allowing the projectile to pass into or through the unfortunate receiver, rupturing vital organs, severing veins and arteries or completely disabling a limb and it wasn't about to just bounce off heavy armor like a standard bow. The same happens with a crossbow at short and medium range, as the weapon was designed around the idea of punching armor with deadly accuracy. Third, if I shot you with a .45 I'd likely see the bullet go through and through meaning no fragmentation. A small wound, yet regardless of where you were hit the hole it just made in you isn't a joke. Furthermore, the idea of the bow wasn't really ever about stopping power as stopping power is literally blunt force trauma and not the slice of the arrowhead. Oddly enough, you bring up a knife which has even less stopping power unless you thrusted it into the target with an unnecessary amount of force as daggers are superb at cutting and stabbing with almost literally no effort. They're shaped and sharpened to glide through flesh like a hot knife through butter, not hit them and push them over. A nice chef's knife cutting a large piece of meat will show this off superbly, with the weight of the light blade actually cutting through it by just pushing it or pulling it, no downward pressure needed. Arrowheads are intended to do the same thing essentially. Lastly, with a wound from one of the aforementioned weapons you can easily expect to not live long unless you do something about it quick. A well placed attack could leave you with ~15 minutes to live if it didn't rupture organs, with a fair portion of that time including you being passed out from bleeding to death. Almost no conflicts end abruptly, even in modern combat where guns that "shred people apart" can still let said shredded person fight on for a good few minutes if left unchecked, but you're still royally screwed if you don't get medical attention. You can get get hit by a high power rifle in the leg and it could be barely hanging on, but those ~3 minutes awake you may have still let you fire your gun too. Push the time period back and you still have the same situations. ...Why would you leave the shield, let alone any relevant equipment, on the horse? Yeah actually it isn't too difficult. Plus you don't even have to sheath your sword, just grip it differently or angle it so you can hold both and you're probably fine. Neither of these things really even take a while even if you do take off whatever weaponry. Depends on the ladder. Most of them are going to be constructed so that you can climb it with a shield, mostly because the people who are occupying the area might want to climb with their shield ready too. It's pretty hard to pick a lock with anything on, considering you often use both hands. On top of that, I wouldn't be too awfully worried about the door pulling a sword on me and trying to hit me. Same kind of deal as above, but you may only need one hand to open and search the chest. Maybe if there's something of interest or something that can't be lifted with a single hand you may set your shield down, but otherwise what's the point in taking it off? If you have the time to open up books and read a few pages, open another and read some more, all combat situations long passed. You're taking a lot of time to sift through a library, even a small one. If you couldn't fit through the passage with the shield, you probably can't without it. The shield was already "taken out" and "putting it away" either involves lower your arm or if you are comfortable that there is no threat of an enemy, strap it to your back (and you don't really care about time taken when there's no threat). Have you ever seen someone clench a dagger with their teeth so they can have both hands free? Clearly if the dagger doesn't get in the way they wouldn't have to. If you're reading a journal, picking a lock, sifting through containers or doing any other task that leaves you completely open, possibly making large amounts of noise and there are armed combatants floating around all over the place, you've possibly made it farther than you otherwise should have. If you HAVE to read that journal or HAVE to grab that item from a chest when there are enemies around, you want everyone in the room dead and you might flip that book open with one hand and desperately try to read it before reinforcements come. Yeah in front of your lockpicking set, probably at your weak hand side that's covered by the shield so nobody can easily snatch it off you at any point in time. Wait... No I don't have one anymore, but I did own one yes. Carrying it on your arm for a few hours is a good idea if you're worried about something coming at you, on your back the thing might as well not exist in terms of weight. If you have no feeling in your arm after carrying something with well distributed weight that doesn't weigh much in the first place, you had it strapped on wrong most likely. And getting a weapon out from your back? Are you mad? You're going to have to reach higher than your arm can go to fully draw it, you'll leave yourself entirely open throughout the whole process, it's a complete nightmare. The thing came with a scabbard that hooks to your waist for a reason. Even a two handed weapon you don't may not "sheath", you'll just rest it on your shoulder (or a couple of other ways) which leaves the weapon at the ready there too. And if we're in this scenario, the bandit would have stalked you out of sight and then ambushed you, that is to say you wouldn't have known you were going to fight a bandit until the bandit murdered you. Why he would murder you right then and there rather than take you hostage and demand you drop everything is beyond me, as it's in the bandits overall interest to not kill you (a murderer will have a much higher bounty than a thief). Plus, unless your head is rolling on the ground, despite a slit throat you can still very well fight back for a few moments and our trusty dagger that you've seen to have glossed over is a fine fit for the job. You're going to end up dead, but if that bandit wants your life you probably want his. Also if you were wearing heavy armor the strike to your protected neck from an axe would have hurt and pissed you off much more than killed you. Swords are for cutting and thrusting (including half swording to stab an opening in armor), axes are for chopping and dismembering, and maces are good for staggering and dealing with armor via blunt force trauma. An axe is quite possibly the worst choice of weapon against an armored opponent. And yes "Supposedly" it is about my great interest in seeing realism in the game that isn't someone's new ENB preset or retexture of Whiterun or new color of glass armor. Now I'm not even sure you agree with me, which makes this a very, very confusing thread. Two people can agree they want the other one dead and also agree that Jägermeister is the best drink. I'm also pretty sure that the overall community isn't exactly interested enough in the overswing fix at this point, all things considered.

Oh boy here we go. In the first 14 seconds Matt was wrong and explicitly showed his lack of knowledge and research on the topic. If we're going to go just with the Sai I talked about - one of the most recognizable melee weapons - they were at they're peak in the 15th century. This was a weapon that was known for being wielded in both hands and he's off by 600 years off of one famous example alone. The second weapon I mentioned was the Rapier, a weapon used mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries and is also an even more well known blade than the Sai by a few orders of magnitude. These are also time periods where writing was in full swing worldwide, as the printing press was a 15th century invention, meaning we have dozens (at least) of historical manuals on these subjects that were mass produced. You literally cannot miss them if you are educating yourself on the topic, even if you're just looking at Wikipedia. So from point to point: Bringing the two blades together is dumb as hell and he's clearly not tried it in sparring. "Marrying" the two weapons together allows for whatever blow your opponent just threw to strike at least one blade, meaning your blade is going to slide off the "married" blade. They aren't welded together instantly because you made them touch. In a downward cut, this would make the married blades fall towards each other at the hilts and let the attack completely pass through, or at least pass through to your chest. In the case of an upward attack, you cannot "marry" the two blades in any such way where you are either going to be entirely open or going to cut yourself on contact with the opponents blow, only to have them follow through with their cut. In the case of an angled attack, it would very literally defeat the defense as not only can your opponent break through your guard as the married blades have different levels of blocking strengths behind them now (meaning inevitable blade slipping) but they're also going to strike your neck/shoulder/arm, disabling you at best, killing you at worst. In the case of a horizontal cut, again each married blade has a different level of blocking strength than the other so they will fold like opening scissors and the attack gets through. There is a reason why a blade has a hilt and Matt does not understand why on a fundamental level (else he would see why this would be a suicide move). To make matters worse, he then says to use one of the married blades that somehow stopped the attack to strike back at the opponent. First, this gives the opponent an instant telegraph as the release of pressure from the bind means you are about to do something, so you've just telegraphed your attack pretty hard. Secondly, by removing the strength behind whatever stance you would use to get yourself into a bind with a DW bind, your opponent immediately puts more pressure on the bind and they get a free push or pull cut as the strength behind your end of the bind is gone. This is assuming of course that your opponent didn't already exploit the opening you made with the married bind and literally just thrust his weapon through your body. All of this is assuming your opponent decided to stick with that bind. With the DW bind displayed, you aren't threatening your opponent with either weapon whilst in the bind as all of the edges and points are facing away from them. They have their blade threatening you, and you pose no immediate threat to them, meaning a next move could be to break or leave the bind, leaving you open to attack and giving you the only solace of an unlikely double-kill and you both fall over dead. If they back off just enough to leave the bind then step forward with a thrust, you're literally defenseless and now dead. I'd also love to know how you would stop a hammer or flail with this defense other than with your body. I'd also love to see a two handed strike stopped before it could make contact - something you can do with a hilt of a blade that you can't with a married block. There is nothing about this strategy that would work unless you're fighting a peasant after a great deal of practice and god help you if the peasant even knows a thing or two about fighting. How does one stop a downward cut with a misaligned hilt/blade? Die? The best this tactic can do is get both of you killed - you thrust him and he cuts open most of your body from the neck down. This concept revolves around not knowing something you learn in your first days of training - don't forget about your opening when you go after your opponents opening. Both people sparring will kill each other a lot at the same time for a while until they get to understand what an opening looks like for both them and their opponent as well as the practice of sacrificing neither for an attack and that's perfectly normal. But not knowing this and proposing combat techniques that revolve around this lack of understanding? That's silly. My sides. Oh god stop please you are killing me this is too funny now, he had to research the topic then disregard any evidence or context surrounding it. He even has a proper parrying dagger too, so he has to know. This just keeps breaking down more and more, I can't take him seriously anymore. I'm sorry I can't. You have to cherry pick so much with this and he's clearly doing it. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Please don't cite him as a source. Oh please do, I'd love to know where I went wrong. Do enlighten me on these battles that will never happen in any of your adventures through Skyrim's vast expansive world, where there are clearly no forts, towers, or military encampments and everything is very much safe and away from any potential civil war. Armor clearly had no serious impact on movement as you can see here, the french demonstrate it well. (more on weight later) Like on a horse. You know, when you won't be using it. Like with everything else actual soldiers used when they're busy on a horse. Also you weren't about to take off your armor and your weapons would be very readily available to you on your horse. The rest of the paragraph doesn't address the shield being a weapon of it's own at all and you also assume that an opponent would open themselves up for a second strike. Also, a properly made shield weighs FAR less then you think. A Scottish Targe 24" in diameter - a shield capable of actually stopping musket balls and grapeshot - weighs about 7lbs. Yes, the huge shield that stopped early gunfire weighed 7lbs or less. The same thing goes for swords - the accompanying weapon for this shield would have of course been the Scottish Basket Hilt Sword, with a well crafted broadsword weighing in at about <3lbs with about a 2.5' reach. (Actually if you drop about $400 you can get beautiful, historically accurate, battle ready versions of both of these by the way) Thanks for agreeing on the animation issues, though. That's what the thread is overall about.

No, sadly it isn't (this video will provide a visual summary mostly). Mostly DW is something that was used in street performance and there are extremely rare cases that we have found from historical manuals and depictions of battles where a fighter uses two of a single weapon type (then again there are some manuals with absolutely insane ****, like unscrewing your pommel and throwing it at the opponent). One of the extremely rare exceptions include the Sai (actually my favorite weapon!) which were commonly used DW, however it is an extremely difficult martial art to master to the point where even without his/her weapons if you got in a fist fight with someone who could wield dual Sai it'd be like trying to beat up a champion MMA fighter. Trying to master a blunt weapon AND DW them is insane. DW takes years of practice to even learn - even longer than what it takes to learn a Katana (expect up to 7 years to fully learn) - and at least the Katana was an extremely effective weapon when mastered. Another example was in duels aka 1v1 with a rapier, where you would take an off hand weapon (if you have any rapier training you know why), but to put it simply, having a dagger of sorts allowed for more versatility against the extreme danger of the thrusting rapier - it was used almost entirely for defense. The main thing you have to remember is that a shield is a weapon. Hell, even in skyrim a power bash can do rather extreme amounts of damage. In real life if I was sparring, I would never bash my opponent because even with a lighter and smaller shield, I'd still be likely to break bones in one blow. Additionally, when you're being bombarded by archers, your second sword isn't exactly going to save you from the volley of arrows that blots out the sun. Skyrim takes archery rather lightly, but in real life if an archer had a real longbow (approx. the size of the archer) from atop a tower or other great area for a "siege bow" you could expect the arrow to otherwise straight up kill you or gravely injure you, likely to only have an opponent in the other army simply finish you off. Mind you, Longbows have so much power behind them that they can literally go completely through your entire set of bulky, thick, heavy armor (whereas a normal bow would often just get half way into your body.. you're kinda screwed regardless). If they're using a crossbow, well your shield could still save you but god help you if a single shot hit you unless you were wearing the right kind of armor (the same goes with bows, just not as extreme) or were out of range as longer distances make crossbows kinda a terrible idea to use. On a similar point, using a bow when someone was close was straight up suicide and you wouldn't even hurt them. Going even further, a shield is an excellent parrying tool on its own, as you can change the direction of the shield's face so that whatever type of cut the opponent tries to do can actually be deflected off of your shield leaving them extremely open to attack, often getting them killed for such a rookie mistake. This is why I like combat mods that add parrying and proper blocking to Skyrim, as it was a very serious and very dangerous thing that you and your opponent have to consider. If you try to make an attack at your opponent who has a shield, you might "miss" because you struck their shield instead of them and suddenly you feel their sword cut right through you, often with the opponent abusing the momentum you used in your strike against you. And now this bit may sound odd in contrast with the last paragraph, but in some fights a warrior might actually drop his shield. Why? Because it's so riddled with arrows that (s)he's better off using that open hand for grappling as it is extremely likely at this point that you are within grappling range, if not quickly approaching it. Both sides of the army can easily have this problem if both sides have archers.

If you don't know what overswinging a weapon is or looks like, this is the best example I could find in a quick manner of time. The idea of attacking being one motion is honestly a side thing for me, it doesn't bother me as much as some of the swings where it looks like you're trying to cut your opponent and trim the grass at the same time. I mean seriously look at this nonsense, and that isn't even the moving power attacks. Is it viable to fix or fixed already? (or is it too much work for this pedant?) Also, don't bother with dual-wield if you are going to go after this kind of thing. Realistically dual-wielding makes absolutely no sense :)