Hello Zenimax,
I have made this recommendation before during the alpha and closed beta follow-ups I participated in. It seems the developers now in the recent patches has made note they want to make the combat more fun and deliberate. So I figured it would be a good time to raise one of my older suggestions as it is a real opportunity to improve the combat and make it closer to a real elder scrolls game.
Recommended Improvements to the Basic Attack Mechanics:
- Directional Attacks should be possible, raising your weapon proficiency to a certain level should allow you to attack in more than just a forward path. Side attacks should be possible for instance if you hold down D and attack it should do a sideways swing to the right and alternatively with a swing to the left.
- Directional Attacks should provide specific, or reasonable tactical benefits, we could even consider some of the idea's from earlier elder scrolls titles where you could use heavy power attacks in directions to do different attacks altogether.