Unarmed skill line (Martial weapons)

Major_Lag

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

ESO is mostly about mass fights and war. Moreover it depicts a relatively high technology level of the local military, so why unarmed monks? You either use physical weapons or magic, but storming, say, Chalman keep unarmed is lunacy. Monks can be soldiers, but they need certain weapon or magic based skill line that case. I say no to purely unarmed physical warfare.

1. You are comparing real life to a fantasy setting, where every player character can use "magical" type abilities - a lot of which have no connection to any weapon usage at all (class and guild abilities, for example).
That is not a meaningful comparison by any means.

2. The great majority of DPS builds in ESO derive the bulk of their damage (~80%) from using the abovementioned abilities, with basic weapon attacks (LA/MA/HA) only contributing the remaining small fraction of the overall damage output.
So it makes perfect sense from an in-game perspective that combat should be very much viable without using any kind of weapon, even in the more challenging content - and some others have already confirmed that it's actually doable.

3. This is also broadly consistent with the previous ES games, even though they had a very different combat system from ESO.
In particular, magicka builds generally used 2H or dual wield offensive spells, or an offensive spell with a ward or heal in the off-hand - which was the rough equivalent of SnB.

4. "Relatively high technology level", lol.
In ESO there are only a few basic stamina weapon types, ones that have been well known through pretty much all of human history since ancient times. Thousands of years later (in the other ES games) and very little has changed in that regard. There aren't even any polearms or chain weapons.
The staves are magical, but only represent 2 of the multiple schools of magic.
Only the Dwemer and CWC have high levels of actual military tech, but the former is a long "extinct" race and the latter is an isolated experimental setting separated from the rest of Nirn.

Aigym_Hlervu

Major_Lag wrote: »

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

ESO is mostly about mass fights and war. Moreover it depicts a relatively high technology level of the local military, so why unarmed monks? You either use physical weapons or magic, but storming, say, Chalman keep unarmed is lunacy. Monks can be soldiers, but they need certain weapon or magic based skill line that case. I say no to purely unarmed physical warfare.

1. You are comparing real life to a fantasy setting, where every player character can use "magical" type abilities - a lot of which have no connection to any weapon usage at all (class and guild abilities, for example).
That is not a meaningful comparison by any means.

2. The great majority of DPS builds in ESO derive the bulk of their damage (~80%) from using the abovementioned abilities, with basic weapon attacks (LA/MA/HA) only contributing the remaining small fraction of the overall damage output.
So it makes perfect sense from an in-game perspective that combat should be very much viable without using any kind of weapon, even in the more challenging content - and some others have already confirmed that it's actually doable.

3. This is also broadly consistent with the previous ES games, even though they had a very different combat system from ESO.
In particular, magicka builds generally used 2H or dual wield offensive spells, or an offensive spell with a ward or heal in the off-hand - which was the rough equivalent of SnB.

4. "Relatively high technology level", lol.
In ESO there are only a few basic stamina weapon types, ones that have been well known through pretty much all of human history since ancient times. Thousands of years later (in the other ES games) and very little has changed in that regard. There aren't even any polearms or chain weapons.
The staves are magical, but only represent 2 of the multiple schools of magic.
Only the Dwemer and CWC have high levels of actual military tech, but the former is a long "extinct" race and the latter is an isolated experimental setting separated from the rest of Nirn.

I say it again: physical weapons and magic are weapons as the whole in that world. I was not speaking of builds, game mechanics or anything else like that. And yes - I compare fantasy setting to real life, because it is a part of real life, it's a very simplified model of it and it is based on it. If you think it is something completely different that has no connection to real life, it is your right to believe it. Secondly, yes, you are not able to throw fireballs IRL, but I think it is simple to understand that fireballs are used as a weapon. Thus unarmed combat in huge massive battles is useless.

Whatever game mechanics the devs show us, unarmed combat must be useless, because if it is not so, the civilization has no reason to develop weaponry (including magical means of warfare).

Please, read again what I have written up there about animals. Unarmed combat can work in a backstreet fight or when you deal with some single enemies the way we did in TES III single player game, but it doesn't when you storm keeps and conquer cities being a part of a massive army. That's what I was talking about. So, please, read my post again and try to understand what exactly I spoke about before "loling" and trying to argue. If that wish still does not leave you, then read it again, twice, whatever, think a bit of what I mean and the point of my post - I personally against that unarmed combat and I gave reasons why. I offer to end this pointless debate. Thank you!

Cirantille

Remember the times you punch dragons to death with a Khajiit in Skyrim

Aigym_Hlervu

Cirantille wrote: »

Remember the times you punch dragons to death with a Khajiit in Skyrim

We were Dragonborns that time (a single Dragonborn for the entire Tamriel with the exception of Miraak, of course) - it was ok . Though this guy was the real one, he showed us a true thu'um mastery :

Kalik_Gold

Why is every comment about real historical warfare and fighting styles in a video game world with Magic and Daedra and Clock work mechanical beings....

Sigh. Any of those Magic or Created/Weapon could be used in a glove or knuckle weapon format.

——

And if people bring up past games with Monk classes - they could still use weapons in them (EQ for example) not all Monk classes used unarmed combat. They were weight restricted so they would off set weight of weapons and armor to maintain their strength.

If Zos implementation a class/or skill line that because of not holding a weapon made them stronger passively that would also increase weapons or spell damage (therefore you won’t need to wield anything) that could work also.

Darkenarlol

i hope i'll never see kungfu pandas and kawaii bardo girls in ESO

Major_Lag

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

And yes - I compare fantasy setting to real life, because it is a part of real life, it's a very simplified model of it and it is based on it. If you think it is something completely different that has no connection to real life, it is your right to believe it.

Sure, because in real life you can do a "magic trick" with a 2-handed sword to immediately heal many of your wounds at the cost of some stamina. Or create an AoE rain of arrows with a bow. And so on. Right.
Never mind the staves - the closest IRL weapon equivalent would be probably a quarterstaff, but that's still entirely nonmagical, so it would be like comparing apples to unicorns.

So no, I do not think there is any merit in comparing IRL and ESO weapons on any basis other than just their appearance.

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

Secondly, yes, you are not able to throw fireballs IRL, but I think it is simple to understand that fireballs are used as a weapon.

At this point you're just hung up on the semantics of what is being considered a weapon.

In terms of in-game weapons, it is very simple: anything you can equip in the main hand slot is a weapon, and everything else is not a weapon.
Sorc frags? Not a weapon. Templar spear of holy light? Not a weapon. DK whip (or thrown poo)? Not a weapon. And so on.

Of course one could argue that anything which you can use to hit/damage/kill an enemy is a weapon, including such things as magical summoned weapons (ie. bound weapons in other ES games) and magical projectiles - in which case, fists would be also considered a weapon by that metric.

Cygemai_Hlervu wrote: »

Whatever game mechanics the devs show us, unarmed combat must be useless, because if it is not so, the civilization has no reason to develop weaponry (including magical means of warfare).

Again, as per the above, I consider "unarmed" in this context to mean "not wielding anything which the game considers a weapon".
So there is no contradiction here.

Consider, for example, a magicka Sorcerer: because they have attained considerable mastery of the magical arts, they can throw a devastating magical projectile, ravage the enemy with a Daedric curse, surround themselves with a strong protective barrier, and even call forth creatures summoned from Oblivion to do their bidding.
None of this in any way requires using a "weapon" in the sense of a sword, staff, or any other implement.

Aigym_Hlervu

Major_Lag wrote: »

Of course one could argue that anything which you can use to hit/damage/kill an enemy is a weapon, including such things as magical summoned weapons (ie. bound weapons in other ES games) and magical projectiles - in which case, fists would be also considered a weapon by that metric.

Yes, I agree with everything left beyond the quote above and I quoted those lines of yours above to point out the essence: yes, fists would also be considered a weapon by that metric. What I say is when presented in the game it has to be a much less effective weapon in comparison to others. Speaking of features I understand the unarmed skill line here as a complex of physical means and skills to inflict physical damage with bare hands only. I don't want some thugs with an arsenal of low and high kicks, jabs and punches only who wear light armor (if we are speaking of traditional monks, not those "robomonks" nonsense) to be able to pierce metal and defeat a hardened keep garrison of well-armed knights or a unit of skilled battle mages.

If you mean some unarmed skills to have some magical features like bound weapon, some sort of palmistry (chiromancy), manual therapy as a healing skill and etc. - then I agree with you, that would be a great idea to see it in the game. But unarmed martial arts, those kicks and hooks are not a skill line to fight a war. This is a skill for single heroes like the Nerevarine, the Dovahkiin, Chuck Norris, etc., those who do not storm and conquer fortresses and cities. Well, I guess now we've understood each other .