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SimonMagus Darvete EnaiSiaion Doodlum aljoxo

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Darvete

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A modern combat overhaul, taking the best aspects of older and newer combat mods. Specifically designed for use with mods like Valhalla and MCO, it is also (possibly) the first of its kind, in that it was designed from its conception with a separate poise/stagger overhaul in mind, resulting in a thoughtful, dynamic combat system.

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Summary of Features
Plus Combat is a combat overhaul built off of Blade and Blunt PLUS+™ bits and pieces of other great mods, with the goal of complementing Valhalla Combat and MCO. It does this by reworking the stagger system, increasing lethality, and encouraging active resource management. It also aims to address common problems associated with poise/stagger overhauls like infinite stagger-locking.

  • Modern poise mechanics and a total stagger overhaul utilizing Chocolate Poise and Chocolate Poise Plus as a base
  • Designed to be used with Valhalla Combat and MCO and serves as a complement to other modern combat mods. However, Vanilla combat animations are still compatible and will still work well
  • Tweaked Valhalla INI designed to further encourage active resource management
  • Tweaked Combat AI built off of Modern Combat AI and Blade & Blunt, with additional changes made by me
  • Light stamina management system designed to discourage attack spam and prevent stagger-lock while (hopefully) being as unintrusive as possible
  • Adds innate armor type bonuses, giving each one a unique identity
  • Tweaked movement speeds - Walking is faster and running is more realistic
  • Adds an armor based stagger system (handled by Chocolate Poise Plus)
  • Attacks of opportunity, (un)ashamedly taken from Blade & Blunt and tweaked for a modern poise system
  • Kill moves no longer trigger on the player
  • Lightweight - Only contains a single tiny script from Smilodon and SPID Distribution file; everything else is handled in a single ESPFE plugin
  • Compatible with all current game versions 1.5.97 and higher (Yes, that includes AE)
  • Makes combat significantly more difficult. (Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing will depend on taste - don't expect to win battles by spamming the attack button.)

Hard Requirements


Soft Requirements/Recommended


Valhalla Combat is REQUIRED for the stamina regeneration and timed blocking to keep up with the fast paced combat. Plus Combat uses Valhalla as a master file - This is non-negotiable. 

Similarly, Plus Combat was designed from the ground up with Chocolate Poise Plus in mind. It makes no sense to use this mod without it. Chocolate Poise Plus is handled through a FOMOD, which should make it relatively easy to install.

While not required, I would highly recommend installing Scrambled Bugs and changing the "powerattackstamina" setting to true to prevent power attack spam and unintended interactions.

TrueHUD allows you to see the enemy's stamina and poise health meter, which is very useful in the context of Plus Combat. It allows you to make more informed decisions on when to go all-in and when to take it slow. HIGHLY recommended.

Armor rating rescaled compensates for the lowered armor values introduced in Chocolate Poise Plus. I would highly recommend this to make sure armor is useful throughout the game.

TK Dodge adds another defensive option to the player's arsenal and increases combat depth. It also optionally comes with the ability to dodge while staggered, which is nice if you want getting hit to be less brutal. It also rewards you for not burning through all of your stamina by giving you an emergency escape option. I'd advise setting the stamina cost of dodging any where from 20-25. Highly recommended. 

Valhalla INI Tweaks

Plus Combat comes with it's own INI tweaks designed to encourage resource management. It disables the exhaustion and light attack system and decreases base stamina regeneration to encourage thoughtful stamina management mechanics. Timed blocking, executions and compatibility settings have been untouched and will require the user to reconfigure these settings or manually copy and paste the stamina settings from Plus Combat to your current INI.

Note that your Valhalla INI may be located in your mod manager's "Overwrite" directory. In order for Plus Combat's INI to take priority, you may have to move or adjust your current INI file.

Poise and Stagger

  • Poise is handled by Chocolate Poise and Chocolate Poise Plus
  • You can no longer jump out or move during a stagger animation (all stagger is now full-body)
  • Stagger magnitude has been normalized, making largest staggers weaker and smallest staggers more impactful
  • Poise damage is determined exclusively by weapon type, ensuring consistent poise health thresholds across a playthrough
  • Although Chocolate Poise allows for it, an actor's armor rating has ZERO influence on poise health. Poise health is determined exclusively by armor type, perks and magic effects.
  • Base poise health is determined by an actor's mass value, which can be tweaked in Chocolate Poise's JSON file. Higher values equal higher base poise health
  • Generally speaking, poise damage is quite high. Most weapons will stagger in 1-3 hits against actors with average mass values (1.0)
  • Light attacks from two-handed weapons deal 10% more poise damage than one-handed weapons, to account for the generally faster attack speed of the latter.
  • An actor cannot be staggered again while they are already staggered (poise health does not deplete when an actor is in a staggered state)
  • Different armor types provide different protection against stagger
  • For more details on how to tweak poise settings as well as alternatives to Plus Combat, check out the Chocolate Poise Plus description page. Most settings can be tweaked in the Chocolate Poise INI and JSON configuration files.

Innate Armor Bonuses and Stagger

Plus combat adds innate bonuses to different armor types, giving each one a focus and identity instead of solely relying on perks to do so. These bonuses are simple, but powerful and playstyle defining, encouraging you to choose your armor carefully based on your build and preference.

Innate Armor Bonuses

  • Heavy Armor Chestpiece: You cannot be large staggered (all large staggers are reduced to medium stagger) by attacks dealt from the front. You take 35% less poise damage from all sources. Blocking reduces incoming poise damage by another 15%.
  • Light Armor Chestpiece: Power attacks cost 15% less stamina to execute. Light attacks and drawing a bow cost 20% less stamina. Your stamina regeneration is increased by 50%. You take 10% less poise damage from all sources.
  • Clothing Chestpiece: Spells cost 15% less magicka to cast. Your magicka regeneration is increased by 50%. You take 5% less poise damage from all sources.

It may seem as though clothing users have it the worst, but keep in mind lots of perk overhauls grant additional incoming poise damage reduction when using flesh spells, making clothing an incredibly versatile option. The global decrease to spell cost and magicka regeneration make this the best option for pure mages and spell swords leaning more towards magic as their main form of offence. 

Archers in particular will benefit greatly from light armor, as the cost reduction when drawing a bow and stamina regeneration will be extremely noticeable and appreciated. Light armor favors heavy aggression and constantly pressuring the opponent. They benefit exponentially from higher stamina pools thanks to the fact that stamina regeneration is % based and not a flat amount. 

Heavy armor users start off noticeably more sturdy than their light and clothing counterparts. However, certain perks in the heavy armor tree can improve stagger reduction even further, reducing ALL staggers to small ones and making you very difficult to stop from all but the heaviest of attacks.

Armor Based Stagger System

Chocolate Poise Plus features its own stagger system, which Plus Combat inherits. For convenience's sake, I have included them in this mod page for your perusal. 

Naked
  • Unchanged ("Cover yourself! Have you no shame?")

Light Armor/Clothing
  • Smallest Stagger increased to -> Small Stagger
  • Small, Medium, and Large stagger -> Untouched
  • Largest Stagger (when hit from the front) reduced to -> Large Stagger
  • Largest Stagger -> Can only occur when hit from behind

Heavy Armor
  • Smallest Stagger increased to -> Small Stagger
  • Small stagger -> Untouched
  • Medium Stagger reduced to -> Small Stagger
  • Large Stagger reduced to -> Medium Stagger
  • Largest Stagger (when hit from the front) reduced to -> Medium Stagger
  • Large and Largest Stagger -> Can only occur when hit from behind

Draugr
  • Medium and Large stagger -> Small stagger
  • Can only be large staggered when hit from behind

Blocking

  • Plus combat inherits many of the changes made to block in Blade and Blunt, with a few changes
  • Stamina is no longer drained on block. This is to prevent situations where NPCs would just stand there and block infinitely without doing anything. (Valhalla's exhaustion system prevents NPCs from attacking until their stamina recovers fully)
  • This also encourages active balancing of offense and defense
  • Blocking is 50% more effective and you take 35% less poise damage while blocking when your stamina is above 0
  • The Valhalla INI has been changed to remove the stamina penalty for holding your guard. This means blocking now has a distinct advantage over dodging - dodging completely negates damage at the cost of stamina, whereas blocking is mostly free but puts you at risk of taking significant damage.
  • To compensate for these buffs, the base effectiveness of blocking across the board has been lowered, encouraging you to make use of timed blocking and weigh the advantages of blocking over dodging.

Stamina

  • Uses Valhalla's accelerated stamina regeneration system. However, stamina regeneration values in Plus Combat's INI are slightly slower than Valhalla's by default
  • Disables the exhaustion and light attack stamina system from Valhalla combat to encourage active stamina management
  • Power attacks costs are determined exclusively by weapon type, not the weight of the weapon. (Derived from Blade & Blunt). This is to complement the flat poise damage values of Chocolate Poise.
  • Power attacking with an empty off-hand reduces the cost of power attacks by 15%.
  • Bows cost stamina to hold and draw. By default, the cost is 10 stamina/second (Reduced to 8 stamina/second if wearing light armor)
  • Light attacks cost stamina to use. Taken directly from Smilodon, Plus Combat adds a light-weight stamina cost to normal attacks. One-handed weapons take 10 stamina to swing, while two-handed weapons take 15. (Reduced to 8 and 12 stamina when using light armor, respectively)

Power Attacks

  • Because guarding decreases incoming poise damage from attacks, light attacks are ineffective at breaking an enemy's guard. 
  • Instead, you should use power attacks to break through
  • Power attacks deal 1.4x more poise damage than normal (Creatures only deal 1.25x poise damage), making them the ideal choice for breaking an enemy's defense. However, one must be wary of power attacking too recklessly - doing so will leave you in a vulnerable state. 

Resource Management and Vulnerability

When an actor's stamina is completely depleted, they become vulnerable. While an actor is vulnerable, they:

  • Deal 50% less damage and 75% less poise damage to enemies
  • Block 50% less damage from attacks
  • Take 2x poise damage from all sources
  • No longer gain a 35% reduction against incoming poise damage while blocking

Note that you CAN STILL perform light attacks even at 0 stamina, ensuring that frost spells and damage stamina effects don't render you completely helpless. 

Resource Management: Exhaustion Addon

By default, Plus Combat disables Valhalla's exhaustion system. However, using the Valhalla exhaustion addon will reenable this function. While it is active, you will no longer deal less health and poise damage upon hitting 0 stamina. Instead, a 25% damage and 75% poise damage debuff as well as a 25% stamina regeneration buff (to help you recover faster) applies for the ENTIRETY of your exhausted state, making resource management even more important.

NPCs will still be unable to attack while exhausted, but they gain a flat 25% stamina regeneration buff to compensate.

Recommended for users who REALLY want to double-down on resource management.

Regardless of which option you pick, you should always keep your stamina topped up, lest you find yourself at the mercy of your enemy.

Attacks of Opportunity

Plus Combat features an attack of opportunity mechanic derived from Blade & Blunt and adapted for Chocolate Poise. Actors take more damage and poise damage while they are:

  • Drawing a bow (+50% Incoming Damage and +50% Incoming Poise Damage)
  • Casting a non-ward spell (+50% Incoming Damage and +50% Incoming Poise Damage)
  • Power attacking (+50% Incoming Damage and +25% Incoming Poise Damage)
  • Out of stamina/Vulnerable  (+100% Incoming Poise Damage)

Unlike Blade and Blunt, being staggered no longer counts as an attack of opportunity. This is to ensure actors aren't getting obliterated/one-shot after being staggered a single time. Additionally, power attacking makes you less vulnerable to stagger compared to casting a spell or drawing a bow to compensate for the increased risk you take while fighting at melee range.

Enemy AI

Vanilla enemies do a lot of standing around. They're indecisive and will often stay there taking your unabated attack spam without much retaliation. Enemies are now much more aggressive and will attack more frequently, emphasizing the importance of good defensive play. Timed blocking will leave you open in their attack range, but will bait them to overextend on their available stamina, eventually putting you in an advantageous state and capitalizing on their vulnerability. They will also leave themselves open more often, allowing you to take seize moments of weakness and put yourself in a favorable position. Pay attention to the resources and poise of your enemy and yourself, and you will come out victorious!

Plus combat uses a hybrid of Modern Combat AI and Blade & Blunt's AI to increase enemy aggression and improve enemy defense. Some combat styles were personally tweaked by me to make them less obnoxious with their bash spam. If you want an even more aggressive/smart AI, absolutely feel free to use other AI overhauls instead of Plus Combat's, such as Enhanced Enemy AI, Realistic Combat AI, etc.

Movement and Turn Speed

Plus Combat slows down movement with a weapon drawn and reduces the turn speed of attacks. Casting a spell also greatly reduces movement speed.

Walk speed has also been increased, with plans to eventually incorporate it as a viable option (currently walking does not really serve much of a purpose). 

If you do not like these changes, there is an optional file that reverts movement and turn speed to vanilla values. 

Damage Multipliers and Difficulty

Plus combat does NOT touch damage multipliers or difficulty. Many people have different preferences when it comes to what damage values feel "right". If you wish to increase or decrease lethality, other mods such as Simply Balanced or Custom Difficulty UI allow you to modify damage multipliers to something that fits your needs and installing one of these is HIGHLY recommended. Simply Balanced in particular even allows users to customize power attack costs, modify damage based on weapon type, equalize damage values as well as many other useful features. Highly recommended, regardless of whether you install Plus Combat or not.

Compatibility

Plus Combat is a standalone combat mod (minus the Valhalla and CPP dependency). It should NOT be paired with other combat mods like Valravn, Blade & Blunt, Wildcat, Smilodon, etc. In the same vein, any mods that are compatible with those mods should also be compatible with Plus Combat. 

Alternative Timed block mods like Sekiro Combat S are compatible to use alongside Plus Combat. The stamina regen on timed block mechanic from Sekiro Combat synergizes excellently with the resource management system of Plus Combat, encouraging a constant shift between defense and offense. Keep in mind though, that timing your blocks with Sekiro S will NOT negate incoming poise damage, which is why I personally prefer Valhalla's timed block system. If you decide to use this, then remember to disable Valhalla's timed block system to prevent feature overlap.

Plus Combat is compatible with Precision, Elden Parry, and SCAR and work very well together. 

While Plus Combat was designed with MCO in mind, there is no reason it cannot be used without it. However, I believe mods like Blade and Blunt, Smilodon, and Valravn are better suited for vanilla style combat.

Plus combat is currently only functional with Chocolate Poise and it will probably stay that way* - it will not work AT ALL with other poise mods like Loki's POISE and it's addon, Poisebreaker. 
(* This may change when/if Maxsu's poise and stagger overhaul get an official release on Nexus)

If you find a mod that is not listed below that has conflicts, let me know and I can look into making a patch.

Compatible

  • MCO/ADXP (Obviously)
  • Vanilla Combat animations (If you are not using MCO)
  • Elden Parry
  • Precision
  • SCAR
  • Sekiro Combat S
  • NPCs take cover
  • Wait your turn
  • Combat Pathing Revolution
  • Ultimate Combat (Give Plus Combat higher priority and disable Ultimate Combat's poise feature in the MCM)
  • Alternate combat AI mods like Modern Combat AI and Enhanced Combat AI (Whichever AI tweak you want to win should have higher priority in your load order)

Semi-Compatible


Incompatible

  • Loki's POISE
  • Poisebreaker
  • Wildcat
  • Valravn
  • Blade and Blunt
  • Inpa Sekiro Combat
  • Any other "total combat overhaul" similar to the ones mentioned above

Not Fully Tested

  • Maxsu Poise (I am still figuring out how it works. Support may come in the future.)
  • Elden Rim - Weapon Arts (Users in the past have said they've gotten it and Chocolate Poise Plus to work together by loading Elden Rim after CPP, but I have not tested it myself)

Installation

  • Install Chocolate Poise Plus and all of its requirements (Including the OG Chocolate Poise, obviously). Make sure to delete or disable the ESP that comes with the ORIGINAL Chocolate Poise Mod.
  • Install Valhalla Combat and all of its requirements
  • Install my mod (If using the Valhalla Exhaustion addon in the optional files then make sure it has the HIGHEST PRIORITY in your load order. Load order between the rest of the ESPs do not really matter)
  • (Optional, but highly recommended) Install Scrambled Bugs and all of its requirements. Change the "powerattackstamina" setting from "false" to "true"
  • (Optional, but highly recommended) Have fun and enjoy the mod!

Credits
This mod would not have been possible without the contribution of other, better mod authors than myself. My thanks for the resources and gracious open permissions from the following authors:

  • SimonMagus and his squad for their work on Blade and Blunt
  • EnaiSiaion for his work on Smilodon
  • aljioxo for his work on Modern Combat AI
  • Doodlum for Chocolate Poise
  • Dtry for Valhalla Combat
  • powerofthree for SPID and KID
  • Ersh for TrueHUD and Open Animation Replacer