>>3774031
nta and I haven't played skyrim at all
ever
but I couldn't evade seeing skyrim (not that I had such goals specifically)

the main difference is that the entire skyrim combat process feels (looks) static, almost passive I would say
it's just standing in place and waiting for enemy health bar to go down in tiny chunks while looking at your health bar loosing even smaller chunks

what obsidian did [so that even the harshest critics agree the avowed's combat is good] is design combat from the ground up with an understanding that just standing in place and exchanging blows is boring
that's why in avowed
>every single health restoration effect is healing over time, not instantly
>hits will stagger you
>on top of that even the weakest enemies do quite a bit of damage
there are probably much more design choices that went into that compared to how much I can notice
but as a result even the tankiest builds are forced to move around and do crowd control or get easily overwhelmed

the best part is that as a trade off the game gives you tons of options to avoid getting hit
>heavy weapons interrupt enmy attacks
>many abilities interrupt enmy attacks
>the stagger/stun bar
>player movement is fast and fluid
>dodges are responsive fast and cover significant distance
>enemies clearly telegraph their attacks
and many more
so you have combat the player is forced to actively engage with on one hand, and has all the tools to do that so it feels fair on the other hand