I hope you don't mind, but I want to sticky this comment because I think a lot of people want this and will ask for it.
I also want to take this opportunity to write my thoughts about the system and why I think this mod is enough and why they should use it even if it's not exactly what they wanted.
I don't know how to make block last forever right now, but I'm sure it's possible as there are other animations putting you into a 'state', there's some parts of the game files that suggest it was part of the game at some point, just like previous bethesda games.
But I don't want to because I actually prefer it with this mod.
Personally, I prefer there to be some proactive element to blocking. Also unless you had equipped a shield, I think holding to block was a bit too easy.
I think the big reason people hate Fallout 4's blocking was for two big reasons,
- It is too difficult to do, even compared to other melee games with parrying, fallout 4's is hard to do.
- It feels unfair and as if it was not meant for this game and it's animations and mechanics. There are not clear and fair hitboxes and telegraphed attack timing windows in fallout 4 - it is not designed for it as well as dark souls or other games that have skill-based parrying. It's not just hard - it feels unfair, which is very different. Dark souls by comparison is also hard but its parrying is fair, and its parrying system feels right.
But,
If blocking/parrying in fallout 4 was still skill-based and timed, but just easier to do, I think people would have liked it. I think it's more satisfying and fun to have the timing-based parrying, I just think it needed to be easier.
Which is why I'd rather make the blocking feel fairer or a bit easier than have constant hold-to-block.
I implore you to just try with this mod, I think it feels a lot better, and might stop you from wanting hold-to-block because it removes problems with fallout 4's blocking.
The important thing about this mod is you can now start blocking when a melee enemy comes close to you, anticipating an attack before they've even started, and you can block them because this mod makes blocking last longer. Feral ghouls charging is a good example of this, they are easily blocked with this mod, a lot of people complained about this attack before. Compared to blocking in fallout 4 before, you couldn't really time blocking properly because often their attack hit frame started too early in their animation, or some enemies attacks or power attacks had a delayed hit frame so they start swinging and your block finishes too early. That's not a problem with this mod now, so there's not such a need for the old system.
What you really need to do is ........ stop asking for more and endorse the mod if you want more than you get for free, learn to make it We waited almost 10 years for good block, less than 10% endorsed
idk if this is within your skillset, but would it be possible to port over skyrim's combat to this game, so the player could use skyrim melee style combat but also use guns at the same time, i guess the only issue would be when using a scope with any gun, but wouldn't it be so cool to have that functionality in this game, suddenly your blocking bullets with your shield on your left hand and then shooting back with a gun on your right, then when a mine is about to blow up, instead of running away, you could hold up your shield and block most of the damage, then when you get into any fight where the NPC is using melee combat you could block their attacks with your shield, it just doesn't make sense with the vanilla melee mechanics in this game being so poorly made for this game like it is, and it would be great if skyrim melee would work in this game.
I wouldn't be able to do this. But yeah, it would be really cool, and it's a shame they stepped down from mechanics they have already made in the engine for Skyrim. I suppose it would've just been a lot of development time and focus to make it work and it didn't really fit in fallout so well. Similarly, Starfield has had melee mechanics depth reduced even further which is a shame.
well at least your honest about the expectations, i have seen people port over assets from this game to skyrim before so i only assumed that the same could happen with skyrim assets simply because it's roughly the same engine just upgraded slightly.
but what do i know, i'm no modder, i did create one mod a long ass time ago, but it was a really dumb mod, basically it was a very overpowered NPC in skyrim, so i assume only the very experienced modders know how to port assets like i'm describing.
Great mod idea that Ive wished for in the past. Impressed that you got this to work, well done! btw, isnt Block usually Right Click? or was this a mod constraint.
That's done by editing animation meshes. The alternative for modifying animations is touching the animationmult actor value but that's messy. You need to get at the animation meshes compressed in fallout's archive plugins first. You can use the Bethesda Archive Extractor tool to do this. Once you've gotten the .hkx meshes out you can modify them. If you don't have any specialised tools or knowledge you can make small tweaks easily with the hkxpack tool. It allows you to convert info from the compressed havok .hkx files back into XML data files, and vice versa. You can simply open these xml files up and tweak things with a text editor. I first tried editing the block animations directly, but while I could change the animation play speed, the animations would still be cut off early as if there was an enforced duration. So I instead edited the MeleeBehavior file which is a kind of master file for specific melee animations. I crudely changed the playback speed values and this worked. So the MeleeBehavior file might be what sets a duration, and there are entries for enforced duration, but I didn't play around enough to really figure it out.
15 comments
I hope you don't mind, but I want to sticky this comment because I think a lot of people want this and will ask for it.
I also want to take this opportunity to write my thoughts about the system and why I think this mod is enough and why they should use it even if it's not exactly what they wanted.
I don't know how to make block last forever right now, but I'm sure it's possible as there are other animations putting you into a 'state', there's some parts of the game files that suggest it was part of the game at some point, just like previous bethesda games.
But I don't want to because I actually prefer it with this mod.
Personally, I prefer there to be some proactive element to blocking. Also unless you had equipped a shield, I think holding to block was a bit too easy.
I think the big reason people hate Fallout 4's blocking was for two big reasons,
- It is too difficult to do, even compared to other melee games with parrying, fallout 4's is hard to do.
- It feels unfair and as if it was not meant for this game and it's animations and mechanics. There are not clear and fair hitboxes and telegraphed attack timing windows in fallout 4 - it is not designed for it as well as dark souls or other games that have skill-based parrying. It's not just hard - it feels unfair, which is very different. Dark souls by comparison is also hard but its parrying is fair, and its parrying system feels right.
But,
If blocking/parrying in fallout 4 was still skill-based and timed, but just easier to do, I think people would have liked it. I think it's more satisfying and fun to have the timing-based parrying, I just think it needed to be easier.
Which is why I'd rather make the blocking feel fairer or a bit easier than have constant hold-to-block.
I implore you to just try with this mod, I think it feels a lot better, and might stop you from wanting hold-to-block because it removes problems with fallout 4's blocking.
The important thing about this mod is you can now start blocking when a melee enemy comes close to you, anticipating an attack before they've even started, and you can block them because this mod makes blocking last longer. Feral ghouls charging is a good example of this, they are easily blocked with this mod, a lot of people complained about this attack before. Compared to blocking in fallout 4 before, you couldn't really time blocking properly because often their attack hit frame started too early in their animation, or some enemies attacks or power attacks had a delayed hit frame so they start swinging and your block finishes too early. That's not a problem with this mod now, so there's not such a need for the old system.
Im still testing this in my own game but so far seems to be working nicely. Great work!
I ported your mod to xbox, with full credits to you and a link to the Nexus page.
Bethesda.net | Extended and Cancellable Melee Block Window Mod
Cheers!
stop asking for more and endorse the mod
if you want more than you get for free, learn to make it
We waited almost 10 years for good block, less than 10% endorsed
+1?
but what do i know, i'm no modder, i did create one mod a long ass time ago, but it was a really dumb mod, basically it was a very overpowered NPC in skyrim, so i assume only the very experienced modders know how to port assets like i'm describing.
btw, isnt Block usually Right Click? or was this a mod constraint.
The alternative for modifying animations is touching the animationmult actor value but that's messy.
You need to get at the animation meshes compressed in fallout's archive plugins first.
You can use the Bethesda Archive Extractor tool to do this.
Once you've gotten the .hkx meshes out you can modify them.
If you don't have any specialised tools or knowledge you can make small tweaks easily with the hkxpack tool.
It allows you to convert info from the compressed havok .hkx files back into XML data files, and vice versa.
You can simply open these xml files up and tweak things with a text editor.
I first tried editing the block animations directly, but while I could change the animation play speed, the animations would still be cut off early as if there was an enforced duration.
So I instead edited the MeleeBehavior file which is a kind of master file for specific melee animations. I crudely changed the playback speed values and this worked. So the MeleeBehavior file might be what sets a duration, and there are entries for enforced duration, but I didn't play around enough to really figure it out.
I waited years for something like this. Thanks !
A little demonstration video would be welcome