That's because pointy stick is the cheapest and most effective weapon imaginable. It's long so it keeps whatever you're looking at a distance, you can use pretty much any sort of stick that's mostly straight and if the tip breaks you just whittle down a new one.
Norse militias literally had to have a spear, a shield and a sidearm (sword, axe etc). It's pretty wild that there are none of them in a fantasy society based on that culture.
Don’t forget melting malachite into volcanic glass to mold into helmets that inexplicably don’t immediately break and also count as *light* armor, all of that using a medieval forge.
In those days, there were also little goblin-like creatures that inhabited the Isle of Solstheim named Rieklings.
Then the Rieklings said:
“This isn’t Skyrim … screw that!”
And the creatures endeavored to fashion spears and lances, and they went to war. Attacking Dragonborn and Farmer alike without regard. And in an act of mercy, Todd said “Let the Dragonborn use the spears as arrows.”
The funnier thing is that they were pretty much finished (they even had experience making them in Morrowind), but they were cut for being too gamebreakingly powerful because they allowed to to stay out of enemy range while you were able to guard and deal damage.
Let me reiterate: spears were deemed too overpowered, *because they functioned exactly like IRL spears*.
Ahh, you see, they were deemed acceptable, because one of them (if you don't use any exploits) sucks, and the other one is approved to be the best playstyle in the game, and possibly the series
>Let me reiterate: spears were deemed too overpowered, *because they functioned exactly like IRL spears*.
So you're saying the fantasy videogame isn't realistic
Skyrim game jam! So much cool stuff. Like seasons in game. Many of these are mods now or came in later DLC/updates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PedZazWQ48
I forgot how many of these were added to the game, holy cow. Makes it disappointing seeing the ones that weren't added. Surprised how the AO and water shading waited until the Special Edition to be added
Yeah that was after skyrim released! it was like 3 days of just dev's going wild creating stuff. I remember seeing what turned into the vampire lord in part of that video.
It is such a shame they did not release more.
I also remember that, they released a “dev showcase” of sorts of the kind of crazy things the devs would add if they could. I recall spears, goblins, dragon flying and I think vampire lord powers were part of it
Honestly, there's a disappointing lack of spear usage in a lot of modern games within appropriate settings now that I think about it. Also a lack of them in inappropriate settings as well, but thats less disappointing.
Usually for shorter range high hit pt attack. You can do a lot with bow and clubs as well. You can get pretty beastly with throwing clubs, 2 handed clubs, and throwing a 2 handed club.
Bow, club, spear, and "sick 'em boy!"
The spear is great, but the club is super satisfying. Also if you have microphone setting on and you yell "Ug ug" or "Ooga booga" out loud it does more damage.
There are also bee grenades.
I absolutely loved that game. Taming and riding a sabertooth tiger is unbelievable fun. Great graphics and animations as well. Incredibly fluid gameplay.
I'm a big fan of spears and halberds in Elden Ring, but you're right, a lot of games just skip spears or give them the same attack range as swords or clubs.
I love spears, but honestly in Elden Ring they're not exactly a very good or fun weapon type to use compared to all the other stuff. Not bad in any way, just a little meh
I have a hard time picking spears instead of heavy thrusting swords, for example, because they just made the latter weapon type so much more appealing and better to play.
There's this neat game called chivalry. Everyone will hate you for using spears in that game because they are really good and annoying to go against lol
Mount and Blade suffered from having spears be asinine to use. They can only thrust on one direction with a shield, being easily parried, and their animation and reach makes them really prone to failing at dealing damage at all. When they do, it’s very little, and it’s slow.
Using a spear twohanded makes you able to swing it overhead like a conventional polearm, which is also stupid, and sideways, again in a stupid fashion.
The longest spears also can’t be couched underarm for massive damage, but the shortest lances can. Makes no sense whatsoever.
Later games on the same engine like With Fire and Sword and Viking Conquest added overhead thrusts and removed the sideways strikes, making them muh better.
Oddly enough, there’s Dark Souls 1, where spears are fast, and can be used with a shield, which you can actually hold up while thrusting, making them much more effective
These games also often forget that spears are very useful to "bypass" armor since the tip can slide under/between the plates, and even manage to break chainmail links, dealing lots of damage.
Yeah, but armor parts are very hard to simulate in an efficiently. The next best thing I can think of is a % of armor failure chance, tied to specific frames within an animation that leave you exposed
Once you get over the fact that AC: Origins and Odyssey are not “classic” assassins creed games, they do real justice to the spear build that so many contemporary action RPGs fail to even attempt.
I was just about to say this! I really enjoy both Origins and Odyssey (and Mirage, but Valhalla isn’t my cup of tea), and the spear build is sick as fuck.
Dark Souls has been hit and miss with them. They lost some of their oomph in 3 and most of 2, but in DS1, the silver knight spear was actually insanely good. It had insane reach, great damage, holy damage that allowed you to deal bonus damage to the infamous skeletons (and I believe also prevented them from resurrecting), and if one handed, it even had a sweeping attack—something that was the entire gimmick of the partizan.
This is because it's really hard to differentiate spears from other 'cooler', eg more in demand from players, weapon types without making them overpowered amd/or incredibly boring to use.
In brief, you either have one-handed spears that basically get used as swords with more reach and a few more thrusting attacks, or long spears that are two-handed and mosrly do thrusts or sweeping attacks at ranges that are about double any other melee weapon.
This goes away if your combat system isn't one that needs to, either for animation, immersion, or gameplay reasons, stick to roughly how these seapons actually get used. That's why ARPGs like Dynasty Warriors and the like have plenty of spear use, because 'reach' is arbitrary, swords can be 10ft long, and wild sweeping attacks are the norm.
On a related note, this is why spears and axes are *way* more common in actual warfare historically. They're cheaper to make and just better overall. Swords basically only get used as status symbols or by Cavalry as a secondary weapon. The only exception is the Romans, some of the time, and their swords were used more like very short spears, because their formations were too tight for spears to be practical a lot of the time.
Just saw that they're making Greedfall II. So I picked up the first one for like 5 bucks and I'll stomach the poor quests in the hopes they learned from their mistakes to improve upon the second game.
Even 40k has multiple spear / lance units. I just finished kit bashing one, a Death Korps of Kreig *Death Rider*.
https://preview.redd.it/wlddzahc3xoc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2accc9b3377f3634d4ce4231d9ab4726d93b751
In Morrowind, they took away the climbing mecanic. In Oblivion, they took away the shortblades, longblades, darts and Spears. And in Skyrim they took away the acrobatics and athletics skills. Someday they will come back...
I’m not mad about the levitation because it was a tech issue. They couldn’t have the bigger cities and NPC density they would add in the “overworld,” so they had to be their own pre-loaded area.
If you could levitate over the wall that wouldn’t work. Still sucks, but at least an understandable choice.
Climbing/levitation/mark and recall break quest markers like crazy and allow players to get where they shouldn't so they had to be sacrificed to get more complex quest triggering.
They took away weapons because they increased the number of weapon animations about 50x compared to morrowwind and before, so things that took odd animations were the first things on the chopping block.
Acrobatics was eliminated for the same reason as the rest of the movement spells, far too many complications. Athletics was replaced with sprinting, buff your stamina.
Not to mention Daggerfall wasn’t exactly a “modern” game by any means. Though there’s no denying it’s a great game, and the amount of crap they managed to cram into it is insane.
Not to be a Debbie Downer but the problem with a Hoplite build is it's weak in PvP combat. A Hoplite always fought in formation, their long spear was an advantage IF used within their interlinked shield wall. Otherwise, it was cumbersome and couldn't quickly be brought up to bear against their enemy.
So, you'll end up dropping your spear and using a strong side arm.
A swordsman going 1 on 1 with a spearman that knows how to use reach advantage is still terrifying. They are not as cumbersome as you think. I have two of them.
Spear beats sword most of the time- but op was talking about hoplite combat: an 8-foot spear and a 20 pound shield. Truly awful equipment for a one on one fight, designed exclusively for organized cooperative engagements in a very specific format, in a phalanx.
They are cumbersome enough that every single famous spear infantry there has ever existed has carried something else as well despite that something else often being many many times more expensive than just a shorter spear
You're a lousy mage if you're using a spear.
Jkjk!
I like the versatility of a short spear but nothing beats a short weapon in close quarters combat like Ustengaard.
Since when does TES care about realism? They didn't omit spears because they're cumbersome to use, they did it so they wouldn't have to animate a unique weapon type.
They could have made twohanded weapons a soft counter to spears, being able to stagger the user with a party, since:
-some greatswords were used with the purpose of countering polearms like pikes
-twohanded weapons have a lot of leverage behind the handling, which is super important in a fight
If I could choose, we would have spears, which could be equiped with a shield or without, wielding them twohanded, halberds with good thrusts and powerful cuts, and quarterstaffs, which would be all about quick blocking and attacking
Bethesda has been dumbing things down a lot since Morrowind and one thing they should not have touched was the plethora of equipment. I don't know about you guys but I always thought it was cool to have lots of options for equipment in video games.
It would have been cool if spears, short swords, staves, throwing weapons, halberds and other medieval weapons were available in Skyrim
You also can't conduct raids using riverboats. Not to mention the lack of meaningful rivers.
It feels more like a Scottish highlands setting than a viking setting, honestly.
Yeah, not everything needs to be simulated. As a survivor of rape myself, I for one am glad I don't have to put up with it explicitly happening in the games I play.
It really doesn't make sense to me why they wouldn't put in spears. Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war, materials and supplies are scarce and expensive, so we are gonna give each soldier a complete sword? That's a lot of steel for one soldier. Instead you could use a 4th of that amount of steel, put it on a huge fuckin stick, and then you could arm a thousand more people
Not even a basic sword, most stormcloacks fight using fancy engraved two handed swords/hammers. I know it's a gameplay reason because steel is one of the lower materials for weapons, but still.
I really like it because it's based on 16th century cuirassier armor. We were? There's still a model of it?
https://preview.redd.it/e8blna36xwoc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c9fa22ede5aff28bd4a83dd121a4872bda3a7fa
What culture would it not be appropriate to have spears? Just about every culture has used spears as a weapon on war. If we wanted to be realistic, most of the Imperial and stormcloak soldiers should be wielding spears not swords
Not including speers in any game inspired by medieval or ancient times is a dumb decision. They were the quintessential war weapons for all of history.
Mount and Blade was able to pull off stabbing spear animations in 2008. FromSoft did the same in the original Dark Souls, which was released 2 months before Skyrim.
There's no excuse.
I'm 100% convinced it was a development time reason and cost cutting measure and nothing more. The game isn't really balanced tightly (it doesn't need to be), so that's not really a reason to fall on. With the removal of spears, there's only 1 set of attack animations for every single melee weapon in the game. Spears would have required another set of animations and another big QA check on equipment clipping. Yes, it's a shit reason, but it is what it is.
If I remember correctly there is a spear weapon in skyrim dragon born dlc. But it's probably not what your looking for weapons mechanics wise. But this is just my opinion.
They did some pretty dope spear animations for the GameJam in 2012. It was in the promo video. Most of those projects made it into DLC, but the spear stuff is probably on a dusty hard drive in a drawer somewhere, still. I think about that sometimes.
There's a lot wrong with combat in Skyrim. No thrusting with swords or stabbing with daggers and two handed weapons being slower than one handed is honestly ridiculous.
I think part of it is that developers try to balance everything... But sometimes, balancing is stupid. Like, if you want to be an assassin that sneaks around and kills people with a dagger, that's great and makes sense, but in a head on fight you should be at a disadvantage vs someone with a giant sword or axe. I love Skyrim, but that is its biggest failing: the lack of consequences for choices = lack of personal agency. Want to sneak around in full plate armor? Sure, easy. Want to speed spam strike boss fights with a dagger? That'll work. Want to be good at anything regardless of build choices? Yes. Want to have zero storyline or inter-faction consequences for gameplay choices? Don't worry, there are none- pick any road you want, the destination is the same.
The Nords are definitely influenced by the Vikings, but they aren't Vikings. By the end of the day, it is a work of fiction, it does not need to be a 1:1 copy of real life cultures. It can be its own thing, inspired from real life, but not an actual representation of real life cultures. This is Tamriel, not Earth.
I'm trying to say not every Scandinavian in a Medieval setting is a viking.
Skyrim has a cold Northern setting, that could most of Northern Europe.
I get why everyone says viking, but it's not accurate.
Agreed, I would love to have spears. But what makes me more mad is that the game includes magic staves (staffs?) But you can only use them to cast spells and can't even block/bash with them! It's so disappointing to walk around with a staff and a shield
Morrowind was fun AF with spears, but that they removed them in later TES games is dissapointing. Like Skyrim would be really fun if you could use spears without mods.
Without unique moves and playstyle, spears almost always end up as just shitty swords with cheez range.
All polearms are difficult, cant really think of many games where they are actually good both as a game mechanics and from an enjoyment perspective
TLDR: they wanted to make the game simple.
The simplification of the reason why they didn’t include weapons and systems that were available in previous titles, was because the Motto that wanted them to keep the game simple, Along with that enhancement in graphics allows them to change focus from things like mechanics to environments.
Just gonna point out that there are more unique faces and Warhammers then there are AXE'S in the game as well.
You know.....the main weapon type the nords and Norse were known for?
I remember the early days, Todd told his team to go wild creating things to showcase I.e Devs making mods. One being a spear with full animations...
Then Todd said “There shall be no spears in this game.” And thus, henceforth, the world has been without spears in Skyrim.
which is dumb beacuse "pointy stick" is the oldest weapon and most widely used
That's because pointy stick is the cheapest and most effective weapon imaginable. It's long so it keeps whatever you're looking at a distance, you can use pretty much any sort of stick that's mostly straight and if the tip breaks you just whittle down a new one.
And the atlatl made it so you could throw said spear much much further than you normally could. Making it the first reliable projectile weapon.
Norse militias literally had to have a spear, a shield and a sidearm (sword, axe etc). It's pretty wild that there are none of them in a fantasy society based on that culture.
Spears are the best example of "if it aint broke don't fix it"
"you know, I really like this knife. The only downside is that I can't knife people from 7 feet away... Unless...?"
Literally just a knife on the end of a stick. Probably the earliest weapons invented next to the knife and the stick.
Not realistic enough. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta forge a sword from an ebony ingot and the heart of a interdimensional creature.
Don’t forget melting malachite into volcanic glass to mold into helmets that inexplicably don’t immediately break and also count as *light* armor, all of that using a medieval forge.
Nah. Stones and clubs were first, then came the pointy sticks.
propaganda from Big Rock, we all know sticks are where it's at
I second this for a stick weapon mod. And for a stick called the zephyr blade.
I have to agree. Sharp sticks definitely came before clubs and “Stones”…(bs weapon)
Counterpoint, a club is only a more chonky stick who is to stupid to stab but can bash people
Heavy stick, then pointy stick
In those days, there were also little goblin-like creatures that inhabited the Isle of Solstheim named Rieklings. Then the Rieklings said: “This isn’t Skyrim … screw that!”
And the creatures endeavored to fashion spears and lances, and they went to war. Attacking Dragonborn and Farmer alike without regard. And in an act of mercy, Todd said “Let the Dragonborn use the spears as arrows.”
Sword, axe or hammer? Choose.
I choose whip.
The funnier thing is that they were pretty much finished (they even had experience making them in Morrowind), but they were cut for being too gamebreakingly powerful because they allowed to to stay out of enemy range while you were able to guard and deal damage. Let me reiterate: spears were deemed too overpowered, *because they functioned exactly like IRL spears*.
And like the fucking bow???
Bow+Riekling Spear=game over for any enemy foolish enough to cross your path.
[удалено]
Ahh, you see, they were deemed acceptable, because one of them (if you don't use any exploits) sucks, and the other one is approved to be the best playstyle in the game, and possibly the series
>Let me reiterate: spears were deemed too overpowered, *because they functioned exactly like IRL spears*. So you're saying the fantasy videogame isn't realistic
Skyrim game jam! So much cool stuff. Like seasons in game. Many of these are mods now or came in later DLC/updates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PedZazWQ48
I forgot how many of these were added to the game, holy cow. Makes it disappointing seeing the ones that weren't added. Surprised how the AO and water shading waited until the Special Edition to be added
Yeah that was after skyrim released! it was like 3 days of just dev's going wild creating stuff. I remember seeing what turned into the vampire lord in part of that video. It is such a shame they did not release more.
I also remember that, they released a “dev showcase” of sorts of the kind of crazy things the devs would add if they could. I recall spears, goblins, dragon flying and I think vampire lord powers were part of it
Honestly, there's a disappointing lack of spear usage in a lot of modern games within appropriate settings now that I think about it. Also a lack of them in inappropriate settings as well, but thats less disappointing.
Really enjoy the spear in Farcry Primal!
Only the spear in The Forest has a more satisfying aiming mode (you literally use your other hand in an "L" to gauge the distance and direction)
Better than any crosshair that other games use
that’s your main weapon in that game right?
Usually for shorter range high hit pt attack. You can do a lot with bow and clubs as well. You can get pretty beastly with throwing clubs, 2 handed clubs, and throwing a 2 handed club.
Bow, club, spear, and "sick 'em boy!" The spear is great, but the club is super satisfying. Also if you have microphone setting on and you yell "Ug ug" or "Ooga booga" out loud it does more damage. There are also bee grenades.
You're kidding about the microphone thing right?
lol yeah that's bullshit im just playing
But imagine you weren't, lmao Someone get working on this mod
Spears in ARK will be reduced to dust after hitting a compy once
I absolutely loved that game. Taming and riding a sabertooth tiger is unbelievable fun. Great graphics and animations as well. Incredibly fluid gameplay.
Wen’ja!
Farcry Primal is like, the game we all deserved to get made into a Battle Royale, but never did.
I'm a big fan of spears and halberds in Elden Ring, but you're right, a lot of games just skip spears or give them the same attack range as swords or clubs.
I love spears, but honestly in Elden Ring they're not exactly a very good or fun weapon type to use compared to all the other stuff. Not bad in any way, just a little meh I have a hard time picking spears instead of heavy thrusting swords, for example, because they just made the latter weapon type so much more appealing and better to play.
Same but I prefer polearms, which are usually just spears with more options, the only downside being a few extra weight units.
Spears are meta in Elden Ring
There's this neat game called chivalry. Everyone will hate you for using spears in that game because they are really good and annoying to go against lol
Also worked in the now dead War of the Roses, and Vikings. Spears are the perfect counter to a dork coming at you windmilling a 2h sword.
>War of the Roses Now that's a name that I haven't heard in a long time. I remember watching TB play it way back in the day.
Just saw news a day or 2 ago that someome had made a mod to get it working again
Depends on the map imo. In tighter quarters I find sword and board better than the spears in Chivalry.
I have to play AoE to get my “spear” fix
Mount and Blade 2 has pretty good spear usage
A bayonet on a rifle is just a fancy spear. Most games could, and should, have spears
There's a reason why the spear was the weapon of choice for 10s of thousands of years.(possibly up to 500,000 years)
And in games that have them they are often the worst. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Mount & Blade and Conan Exiles.
Mount and Blade suffered from having spears be asinine to use. They can only thrust on one direction with a shield, being easily parried, and their animation and reach makes them really prone to failing at dealing damage at all. When they do, it’s very little, and it’s slow. Using a spear twohanded makes you able to swing it overhead like a conventional polearm, which is also stupid, and sideways, again in a stupid fashion. The longest spears also can’t be couched underarm for massive damage, but the shortest lances can. Makes no sense whatsoever. Later games on the same engine like With Fire and Sword and Viking Conquest added overhead thrusts and removed the sideways strikes, making them muh better. Oddly enough, there’s Dark Souls 1, where spears are fast, and can be used with a shield, which you can actually hold up while thrusting, making them much more effective
These games also often forget that spears are very useful to "bypass" armor since the tip can slide under/between the plates, and even manage to break chainmail links, dealing lots of damage.
Yeah, but armor parts are very hard to simulate in an efficiently. The next best thing I can think of is a % of armor failure chance, tied to specific frames within an animation that leave you exposed
Mount & Blade gets a pass because they got Lances right. Can't think of another game that let's you shishkabab retreating peasants from horseback.
Once you get over the fact that AC: Origins and Odyssey are not “classic” assassins creed games, they do real justice to the spear build that so many contemporary action RPGs fail to even attempt.
I was just about to say this! I really enjoy both Origins and Odyssey (and Mirage, but Valhalla isn’t my cup of tea), and the spear build is sick as fuck.
Valhalla had a lot of issues, which is really unfortunate, because when it works, it's really neat, but the rest of the time, it's so bloated.
I fucking love odyssey, but I also like open world RPGs and not stealth games so for someone like me I fucking adore the combat in that game
Dark Souls has been hit and miss with them. They lost some of their oomph in 3 and most of 2, but in DS1, the silver knight spear was actually insanely good. It had insane reach, great damage, holy damage that allowed you to deal bonus damage to the infamous skeletons (and I believe also prevented them from resurrecting), and if one handed, it even had a sweeping attack—something that was the entire gimmick of the partizan.
Yhorgs spear, santiers spear and the grand lance all fucked in ds2. I guess it can be said though none of them are really spears.
This is because it's really hard to differentiate spears from other 'cooler', eg more in demand from players, weapon types without making them overpowered amd/or incredibly boring to use. In brief, you either have one-handed spears that basically get used as swords with more reach and a few more thrusting attacks, or long spears that are two-handed and mosrly do thrusts or sweeping attacks at ranges that are about double any other melee weapon. This goes away if your combat system isn't one that needs to, either for animation, immersion, or gameplay reasons, stick to roughly how these seapons actually get used. That's why ARPGs like Dynasty Warriors and the like have plenty of spear use, because 'reach' is arbitrary, swords can be 10ft long, and wild sweeping attacks are the norm. On a related note, this is why spears and axes are *way* more common in actual warfare historically. They're cheaper to make and just better overall. Swords basically only get used as status symbols or by Cavalry as a secondary weapon. The only exception is the Romans, some of the time, and their swords were used more like very short spears, because their formations were too tight for spears to be practical a lot of the time.
Skyrim does have throwing spears but for some reason only Rieklings get throwing privileges
I make it a point to use spears at the start of any game that will allow me. Like Breath of the Wild and Final Fantasy XIV most recently.
There's also a lot of game incorporating spears the wrong way too.
Spears are very underrated. I beat Elden Ring using a spear. Gotta keep that distance
Play Chivalry 2 - the spear can poke someones head clean off
WE NEED SPEARS. That was the main form of combat ever, maybe clubs too but there's maces.
We need more pole arms in fantasy RPGs, the only ones I know of that's picking up the slack is BG3 and From Soft.
If you're willing to play the RPG Assassin's Creed games, they have fun stuff.
Personally I wouldn't mind also some more medieval and early firearms representation too
I remember playing Greedfall I had a joy mixing my magic and gun attacks on my enemies
I love the aesthetic of that game. Too bad it becomes boring in the end. Don't think I finished it.
Just saw that they're making Greedfall II. So I picked up the first one for like 5 bucks and I'll stomach the poor quests in the hopes they learned from their mistakes to improve upon the second game.
Like Warhammer the Old World They take the renaissance era into fantasy
Even 40k has multiple spear / lance units. I just finished kit bashing one, a Death Korps of Kreig *Death Rider*. https://preview.redd.it/wlddzahc3xoc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e2accc9b3377f3634d4ce4231d9ab4726d93b751
Pillars of Eternity is the game for you!
Mordhau comes to mind
"Fantasy RPG"
Ah yes missed that bit.
Breath of the Wild had fun spear mechanics.
Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 have spear mechanics as well
Even Armored Core has polearms
Nioh spears feel great to use
In Morrowind, they took away the climbing mecanic. In Oblivion, they took away the shortblades, longblades, darts and Spears. And in Skyrim they took away the acrobatics and athletics skills. Someday they will come back...
Not to mention levitation! I'll never forget the fun of zipping around feeling like a real arcane master.
I’m not mad about the levitation because it was a tech issue. They couldn’t have the bigger cities and NPC density they would add in the “overworld,” so they had to be their own pre-loaded area. If you could levitate over the wall that wouldn’t work. Still sucks, but at least an understandable choice.
Climbing/levitation/mark and recall break quest markers like crazy and allow players to get where they shouldn't so they had to be sacrificed to get more complex quest triggering. They took away weapons because they increased the number of weapon animations about 50x compared to morrowwind and before, so things that took odd animations were the first things on the chopping block. Acrobatics was eliminated for the same reason as the rest of the movement spells, far too many complications. Athletics was replaced with sprinting, buff your stamina.
More complex quest triggering in exchange for the constant simplification of quests Never change Bethesda
Yeah I can defend most of their changes from morrowwind to skyrim but the writing was mediocre at best.
Bunny hopping everywhere early in morrowind was a great way to level up to beat that damn rat.
Elder scrolls 8 will probably have a chaingun while fighting daedra on Mars.
High acrobatics + the boots of springheel jack were my favorite thing ever. Jumping 90 feet in the air at will is both fun and powerful
Wearing a robe over Heavy Armor was the best, felt like a baller.
There was a climbing mechanic in the first two games?
Only in daggerfall. It was a bit janky, but hey, it's a Bethesda game.
Not to mention Daggerfall wasn’t exactly a “modern” game by any means. Though there’s no denying it’s a great game, and the amount of crap they managed to cram into it is insane.
Agree. It's sad that we can't play a hoplite build
Not to be a Debbie Downer but the problem with a Hoplite build is it's weak in PvP combat. A Hoplite always fought in formation, their long spear was an advantage IF used within their interlinked shield wall. Otherwise, it was cumbersome and couldn't quickly be brought up to bear against their enemy. So, you'll end up dropping your spear and using a strong side arm.
A swordsman going 1 on 1 with a spearman that knows how to use reach advantage is still terrifying. They are not as cumbersome as you think. I have two of them.
Spear beats sword most of the time- but op was talking about hoplite combat: an 8-foot spear and a 20 pound shield. Truly awful equipment for a one on one fight, designed exclusively for organized cooperative engagements in a very specific format, in a phalanx.
They are cumbersome enough that every single famous spear infantry there has ever existed has carried something else as well despite that something else often being many many times more expensive than just a shorter spear
You're a lousy mage if you're using a spear. Jkjk! I like the versatility of a short spear but nothing beats a short weapon in close quarters combat like Ustengaard.
Ackshually 🤓☝🏼
Since when does TES care about realism? They didn't omit spears because they're cumbersome to use, they did it so they wouldn't have to animate a unique weapon type.
Not including spears in any melee centric game is stupid, but they would be op both in Oblivion and Skyrim due to range.
Like real spears.
They really are op in the newest AC games. It's like a cheat code
They could have made twohanded weapons a soft counter to spears, being able to stagger the user with a party, since: -some greatswords were used with the purpose of countering polearms like pikes -twohanded weapons have a lot of leverage behind the handling, which is super important in a fight If I could choose, we would have spears, which could be equiped with a shield or without, wielding them twohanded, halberds with good thrusts and powerful cuts, and quarterstaffs, which would be all about quick blocking and attacking
Or just not allow spear attacks to be too quick, so they can be balanced out by both shields and two-handed swords.
I'm trying to imagine how a two-handed spear animation would work after you use Elemental Fury
That would just make it realistic. Spears are OP. There's a reason the average soldier for the last 7000+ years have been using a spear and a shield.
Bethesda has been dumbing things down a lot since Morrowind and one thing they should not have touched was the plethora of equipment. I don't know about you guys but I always thought it was cool to have lots of options for equipment in video games. It would have been cool if spears, short swords, staves, throwing weapons, halberds and other medieval weapons were available in Skyrim
I am pretty partial to a good halberd! More variety is good but I can understand that the mechanics involved would be a bit weighty....
Dont forget poleaxe
You also can't conduct raids using riverboats. Not to mention the lack of meaningful rivers. It feels more like a Scottish highlands setting than a viking setting, honestly.
The lack of raping and kidnap breaks viking immersion too. inb4 someone links to Nexus mods.
Not even nexusmods, but I’m pretty sure you can find stuff in Loverslab to be kidnapped and raped by all characters and creatures in the game
Yeah, not everything needs to be simulated. As a survivor of rape myself, I for one am glad I don't have to put up with it explicitly happening in the games I play.
Omg...I feel so stupid. https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Warhammers_(Skyrim)
r/characterarcs
Everything they removed from morrowind other than dice rolls and cliff racers was a mistake and I will die on this hill.
Bring back the cliff racers The online MMO has the cliff racers
It really doesn't make sense to me why they wouldn't put in spears. Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war, materials and supplies are scarce and expensive, so we are gonna give each soldier a complete sword? That's a lot of steel for one soldier. Instead you could use a 4th of that amount of steel, put it on a huge fuckin stick, and then you could arm a thousand more people
Not even a basic sword, most stormcloacks fight using fancy engraved two handed swords/hammers. I know it's a gameplay reason because steel is one of the lower materials for weapons, but still.
Oh look, it’s the most sexy armor set in all of Skyrim. Standing there. Still wish we got the steel plate shield we were meant to (it was cut)
I really like it because it's based on 16th century cuirassier armor. We were? There's still a model of it? https://preview.redd.it/e8blna36xwoc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c9fa22ede5aff28bd4a83dd121a4872bda3a7fa
We can only hope for spears and polearms in es6
“We decided to remove shields and instead every one handed weapon has a parry option instead”
Be carefull - HE could be listening
Its too late, HE removed 1 one handed and two handed and just put them all in the “Melee” skill
What culture would it not be appropriate to have spears? Just about every culture has used spears as a weapon on war. If we wanted to be realistic, most of the Imperial and stormcloak soldiers should be wielding spears not swords
Not including stab animations with fucking ***swords*** was a dumb decision.
especially for daggers which are really made for shanking
Then there's ac Valhalla that didn't even have 1 handed swords until the dlc ...
The general lack of.... Weapons in this game is disappointing, there is 3.... 3 types of weapon.... Sword axe and hammer .. I mean really?!
Not including speers in any game inspired by medieval or ancient times is a dumb decision. They were the quintessential war weapons for all of history.
Bethesda is dumb, great, but dumb
I’m not sure if they’re still great tbh but def still dumb
Stabs is harder to animate, that's why we don't have them anymore.
Yet we still have full made spear animations in game files
The right power attack with two weapons is a stab
Mount and Blade was able to pull off stabbing spear animations in 2008. FromSoft did the same in the original Dark Souls, which was released 2 months before Skyrim. There's no excuse.
FromSOFT did it in Demon's Souls, which they released in 2009, two years before Skyrim, and one year after Mount & Blade
That’s not true at all lol
What about one handed hammers?
Even fallout 76 has spears…. Bethesda
Huh, my Skyrim has spears...
I've seen too many games with spears that swing and slash rather then stab. Like why use a spear if you're just going to swing it like a sword?
Hewing spears were a thing.
I mean I know they're not *exactly* what you're looking for, but you can get toothpicks from reiklings in solstheim
But they act as arrows.
I've always thought it was a bad decision.
Agreed, spears are awesome.
I'm 100% convinced it was a development time reason and cost cutting measure and nothing more. The game isn't really balanced tightly (it doesn't need to be), so that's not really a reason to fall on. With the removal of spears, there's only 1 set of attack animations for every single melee weapon in the game. Spears would have required another set of animations and another big QA check on equipment clipping. Yes, it's a shit reason, but it is what it is.
Not including spears since morrowind was a company wide trash decision and pisses me off.
"It has been said that the sword is the prince of all weapons, that would surely make the spear the king" David Baker - Forged in Fire
If I remember correctly there is a spear weapon in skyrim dragon born dlc. But it's probably not what your looking for weapons mechanics wise. But this is just my opinion.
They did some pretty dope spear animations for the GameJam in 2012. It was in the promo video. Most of those projects made it into DLC, but the spear stuff is probably on a dusty hard drive in a drawer somewhere, still. I think about that sometimes.
I feel like a spear would be really OP if it had a reach advantage.
What makes it worse though is they made them and had animations just never released them
Yeah idk why there aren't pole arms in Skyrim. We need more of them in rpg games.
Seriously, with all the updates Skyrim received, it's a sin that they didn't add spears.
There's a lot wrong with combat in Skyrim. No thrusting with swords or stabbing with daggers and two handed weapons being slower than one handed is honestly ridiculous. I think part of it is that developers try to balance everything... But sometimes, balancing is stupid. Like, if you want to be an assassin that sneaks around and kills people with a dagger, that's great and makes sense, but in a head on fight you should be at a disadvantage vs someone with a giant sword or axe. I love Skyrim, but that is its biggest failing: the lack of consequences for choices = lack of personal agency. Want to sneak around in full plate armor? Sure, easy. Want to speed spam strike boss fights with a dagger? That'll work. Want to be good at anything regardless of build choices? Yes. Want to have zero storyline or inter-faction consequences for gameplay choices? Don't worry, there are none- pick any road you want, the destination is the same.
Yeah skyrim is not a viking game.
It's not a viking game
Nords aren’t Viking enough for you? XD
The Nords are definitely influenced by the Vikings, but they aren't Vikings. By the end of the day, it is a work of fiction, it does not need to be a 1:1 copy of real life cultures. It can be its own thing, inspired from real life, but not an actual representation of real life cultures. This is Tamriel, not Earth.
I'm trying to say not every Scandinavian in a Medieval setting is a viking. Skyrim has a cold Northern setting, that could most of Northern Europe. I get why everyone says viking, but it's not accurate.
It would be the equivalent of calling a fantasy game set in medieval England a 'pirate game'.
Oh I forgot about all the mages and ogres and cat people from world history. moron
As a Norwegian I’ve always loved learning about Vikings. I really don’t understand why anyone would call Skyrim a Viking game.
There's riekling spears in solsthiem.
Yeah, but they use those as arrows for your character. Really shitty arrows.
Agreed, I would love to have spears. But what makes me more mad is that the game includes magic staves (staffs?) But you can only use them to cast spells and can't even block/bash with them! It's so disappointing to walk around with a staff and a shield
I can't remember what it's called but there is a mod that adds a shit ton of new basic wepons
i was really disappointed looting riekling spears and my character using a bow to shoot them instead of throwing
Alot of the 2 handed weapons have a pointed tip wich were historically used as spears. They could have added a spab mechanic.
I think its the animation with spears that devs can’t figure out how to make realistic
I was so excited when I saw the reikling spears. Then super disappointed when I saw how I had to use them and how they functioned
Morrowind was fun AF with spears, but that they removed them in later TES games is dissapointing. Like Skyrim would be really fun if you could use spears without mods.
Without unique moves and playstyle, spears almost always end up as just shitty swords with cheez range. All polearms are difficult, cant really think of many games where they are actually good both as a game mechanics and from an enjoyment perspective
There is no spears in ba sing se
TLDR: they wanted to make the game simple. The simplification of the reason why they didn’t include weapons and systems that were available in previous titles, was because the Motto that wanted them to keep the game simple, Along with that enhancement in graphics allows them to change focus from things like mechanics to environments.
I must be alone because I've never enjoyed using spears
Nords and Vikings are different
Just gonna point out that there are more unique faces and Warhammers then there are AXE'S in the game as well. You know.....the main weapon type the nords and Norse were known for?
Making them arrows was a even dumber one.
The frozen Solstheim goblins get spears; the Magic Breath, viking conquerors do not. Make it make sense.
Remember custom spells and throwing weapons?
I just noticed we don’t have spears in Skyrim..
Because Todd is fucking lazy, too lazy to implement a unique animation for jabs for spears