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About this mod
Sovngarde Beckons is a third person combat overhaul mod. This mod was designed to improve the vanilla combat experience in third person. My aim was to take the vanilla systems and change them to make the combat more interesting as well as add some new systems to flesh out the combat and support a variety of playstyles.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FEATURES
- Attack commitment for all characters and most creatures.
- Changed AI combat styles and movement.
- Changed Movement speeds for all actions to make the combat slower and more tactical.
- Stagger system.
- Parry system.
- Stamina cost for attacks depending on weapon weight.
- Stamina regeneration greatly increased.
- No more base health regeneration, can be turned on/off through MCM.
- New powers for archer and mage classes.
- Complete overhaul of block mechanics.
- No more recoil animation when attacking blocking enemies.
- Changed perks for the block tree to better suit the changes made to blocking. Both for Vanilla perks and Ordinator.
- Removed all kill moves (Now configurable in MCM).
- Reduced range of all weapons.
- Fixed sniper enemies and ultra instinct dodges by NPCs.
- You can no longer attack at 0 stamina and power attacks have a minimum cost.
- Magicka regenerates at the same rate in and out of combat.
Most features are customizabe through MCM
THINGS I'M WORKING ON ATM
- Adding Hyper armor to two-handed weapons(maybe).
STAGGER SYSTEM HAS NOW BEEN REWORKED!
DISCLAIMER
This mod will make your game significantly harder and as such, will not be for everyone. I feel like although the game is harder, it is much more satisfying to play.
Also this mod was designed with a few other mods in mind, without them the experience might not be as good so I HIGHLY recommend you download these mods.
Feel free to experiment though, that is what modding is all about afterall.
The two main mods that are pretty much must have are TDM and Smoothcam, trust me these mods are (literally) game changers.
Recommended Mods:
True Directional Movement - This mod single handedly changed the third person skyrim experience and I can not recommend it enough.
Smoothcam - Highly recommended, changes the third person camera and is very customizable.
Skyrim Revamped - Loot and Encounter Zones - I balanced my mod with this mod in mind as this is my encounter zone mod of choice, although any other similar mod should work, like MLU.
Ordinator - If you use Ordinator, I have also made an Ordinator version for this mod, integrating my changes into the block tree as well as some other abilities. Full list of changes further below in the description.
Any dodge mod - Sadly I feel like making my own is out of my reach for now, maybe in the future I will consider it but for now I HIGHLY recommend getting a dodge mod. My personal choice is Tk Dodge.
3rd Person Camera Stagger Remover - Fixes the annoying camera shake when getting hit.
Animations - I recommend installing replacement animations for most of the vanilla actions. I personally use a combination of the Vanargand and Leviathan animations by Verolevi. I also use many of Smooths animations, they are extremely well done.
Dual Wield Parrying - Without this mod playing a dual wield build will not feel as good.
AGO - Improves bow gameplay and combines very nicely with this mod.
Ice scating fixed for real - Makes the attack animations feel a lot nicer.
WHY DOES THIS MOD EXIST?
There are so many incredible combat mods out there made by authors that are infinitely more skilled than I am, many of which I have tried. However I have always found that there was something that I wanted to change or do differently, especially when it comes to third person combat. I would not call this mod revolutionary or anything like that but I feel like with this mod I have achieved a state of gameplay and balance that I am quite satisfied with.
When it comes to third person combat, vanilla skyrim is in my opinion, quite lacking. There is no reliable way to avoid damage and most of the combat relies on pure stats and requires little thought and decision making. You have probably heard this sentiment before and though at this point it has been said many times, vanilla skyrim combat is very much "Tank everything and right click spam, or alternatively play a stealth archer". What I set out to do with this mod is to take the vanilla systems and make them more satisfying, as well as add some new systems that compliment what is already there.
I designed this mod to be completely independent from other combat mods and I recommend running this mod as the only combat mod in your list.
The overall combat experience with this mod is somewhere between Vanilla+ and full overhaul(but not quite). I tried to preserve the essence of the vanilla game as much as possible, I think that the closer you stay to the original game the smoother the overall experience will be.
COMBAT STYLES, MOVEMENT AND OTHER CHANGES
Movement
The first thing that needed changing was the movement. (Almost)Every creature and NPC now has attack commitment, meaning that enemies and the player can no longer correct their attack direction. Once an attack has been input, the character will be locked in place for the duration of the animation. What this does is make most attacks avoidable with dodges or good spacing, as well as leaving the character exposed to a counter attack if the attack was timed or aimed poorly.
These changes also affect mages and maksmen, mages will move much slower while channeling their spells and archers will also be slower while holding their bow drawn. This might seem harsh at first but I felt like this needed to be done to even the playing field, you will find that these playstyles are still extremely strong due to their range advantage and the stagger mechanics.
The actual movement speeds have also been greatly reduced from vanilla skyrim. Overall you will find that you now run and sprint a bit slower and walk significantly faster.
These slower movement speeds slow the combat down and add more weight to the feel of the game. This makes for much more intense duels and combat encounters as well as add some realism.
Combat Styles
Combat styles for NPCs have also been changed. Enemies now play much more defensively or aggressively depending on the situation. Most of the changes I made were to balance the AI around the added or changed features I introduced.
Destruction magic
Destruction magic has received a nerf. Still with all the movement limitations destruction felt too strong, magic resistance is not very common and cannot be blocked, especially concentration type spells. This makes mages extremely hard to deal with, to balance this destruction damage has been nefed by 30% all across the board.
This may seem like alot, but it now feels much more balanced and with the new ability I added for mages (more about this further down) this will not be a problem.
NPC magic casters will now also behave differently, they will now very rarely cast concentration spells. This is because when the player uses concentrations spells it's fun, but when the AI does it it's not. Especially when it comes to frostbite spells, they will drain your stamina and for melee classes this is a death sentence.
This results in most magic damage now being dodgeable/avoidable.
Health Regeneration
Health now (Optionally) no longer regenerates passively. To clarify, there is no more BASE health regeneration, increasing your health regeneration through enchantments or other means still works just fine and will instead just enable regeneration instead of increase it like in vanilla. I personally like this change, it makes it so that you need to prepare before you head out, buy/make potions, invest in restoration magic etc. This change also makes health regeneration effects much better, I feel like in vanilla they are not that useful.
Kill Moves
Kill moves have been completely disabled. I feel like kill moves are extremely unbalanced. With encounter zone mods you will most likely be underleveled at all times, this means that every enemy just one shots you with a kill move without allowing you to outplay or outsmart them. For that reason, killmoves are gone. I know that I could have simply changed the conditions, but I've never been a big fan of the killcams and feel like the game is none the worse for wear without them.
This is as of 1.0.1 configurable in the MCM
Weapon range
I changed the range of the weapons to be more fair and match the size of the weapons more. I still left some extra reach as I think that having the range too short can be a little frustrating. In my opinion this is a good balance between realism and enjoyable gameplay.
Block area fixes
The block plane when holding up your weapon or shield is now much wider, you will block everything in front of you and a little bit from the sides. Only from behind will you be completely exposed when blocking.
STAGGER SYSTEM
To reward the player for capitalizing on an attack I had to implement a stagger system. Most enemies can now stagger except for large monsters and dragons.
How it works:
The stagger system now works based on a (hidden) stagger meter. As long as this meter is NOT full the target will keep staggering from hits. When the meter fills up, the target will enter a cooldown state in which they can not be staggered for the duration (cooldown is configurable). The first attack will ALWAYS be a guaranteed stagger regardless of the weapon, this is to make sure you don't get hit back when attacking a good opening.
Weapons will now fill this meter depending on their weight. There is an inverse relationship between the weight of the weapon and the amount of meter a weapon will fill.
What this means is that heavy weapons will fill the meter slower, allowing for multiple consecutive staggers, while lighter weapons will fill the meter quicker, making them stagger less. This is because heavy weapons swing slower, so it is harder to find an opening. Lighter weapons obviously are much faster.
To balance the low stagger of lighter weapons, there are now threshold staggers. Characters are now guaranteed to stagger once they reach 60% and 30% health.
This will make it so lighter weapons still have plenty of stagger opportunities as long as the DPS is high.
This is how the stagger of a weapon is calculated (for those that are interested in the math):
The stagger meter ranges from 0 (empty) / 100 (full)
The formula: K / WeaponWeight * StaggerWeightMult= StaggerMeter Amount
Where K = constant for stagger, the constant is 1224
WeaponWeight = Weight of the weapon
StaggerWeightMult = multiplier for stagger amount, defeault is 1 (Configurable through MCM).
Examples:
Iron Sword weighs 9 units. 1224 / 9 * 1 = 136
This means that after just 1 hit with an iron sword, the target will enter a cooldown state (136 is enough to fill the whole meter of 100).
Iron Warhammer weighs 24 units. 1224 / 24 * 1 = 51
This means that it would take 2 hits to fill the stagger meter with this weapon, resulting in 2 consecutive staggers before they enter cooldown.
The StaggerWeightMult can be configured in MCM, lower values than 1 will decrease the amount of meter any weapon fills, meaning that it will result in more staggers all across the board. Higher values than 1 will of course do the opposite.
TLDR without the math: Light weapon = less consecutive stagger. Heavy weapon = more consecutive stagger.
The stagger system is there to reward the player for executing a good attack and allow to chain attacks together without needing to take damage, but beware the player can also stagger. This will make it so that comitting to a poor attack is a potentially fatal mistake. This also makes it viable to take risks and be able to interrupt an already attacking enemy or lock down an npc with a fast weapon like a dagger to allow for multiple hit combos. To balance staggerlocking it is advised to keep the numbers reasonable.
Magic will not stagger. This choice if twofold. With concentration spells being in the game, and due to the nature of how they work, having them be able to stagger would be completely broken and result in constant stagger locking. Second reason is that both Ordinator and vanilla destruction trees already have perks that enable stagger on projectile spells. The alternative would be to remove concentration spells altogether but they definitely have their place in the game and I would like to keep this mod a s compatible as possible.
ATTACKS COST STAMINA
To incorporate resource management into the combat, attacks now consume stamina. This is so that you can no longer spam attacks and in turn staggerlock your opponent and to add more decision making and thought into the combat. To compensate for the stamina cost, now stamina regenerates much faster, as you can see in the video demonstration.
Bows will also consume stamina. Holding a bow drawn will consume 8 stamina per second. Having this value configurable through MCM is something I really wanted to implement but this would imply having a constanly updating script every second, I decided against that and opted to implement it in a more performance friendly way. If you are interested in the technical details and have any suggestions on how to better tackle this issue I would love to hear it.
On top of attacks costing stamina, you will now not be able to issue an attack command when at 0 stamina and power attacks will require a minimum of 30 stamina.
How it works:
Stamina cost is determined by a simple formula, MinimumStamina + (WeaponWeight * WeightMult) where:
MinimumStamina = Minimum stamina cost for any weapon regardless of weight, the default value is 8.
WeaponWeight = The actual weight of the weapon.
WeightMult = Multiplier for weapon weight, default is 1.33. This means that the cost will be 1.33 per unit of weight.
Example: Iron dagger weighs 2 units, 8 + (2 * 1.33) = 10.66 ~ 11 stamina.
The minimum stamina and the weight multiplier can be configured through the MCM.
PARRY SYSTEM
(Sorry for no audio in the video, I had some music playing and forgot to pause it while recording, youtube forced me to mute it)
Call it what you will, timed block, parry, you've seen it before and maybe you are tired of seeing this feature in combat mods, and I can understand why. In all seriousness, I feel like a parry feature really is the most effective way to tackle damage mitigation. It is a high risk high reward mechanic and it rewards skilled play.
I tried to make it as responsive as possible and added some visual feedback in the form of a red shader to indicate that the enemy is vulnerable.
How it works:
Every single weapon and shield will be able to do a parry, if you block right before the opponent's attack hits you, they will become staggered and receive increased damage for 3 seconds. Performing a successful parry will cost no stamina and will cause no health damage.
NPCs will not be able to perform parries, only the player will have this ability. The default parry window is 0.3 seconds from the moment you raise your guard. This may seem like a short time but as you can see in the video it gives you plenty of time.
You can configure the parry window in the MCM.
BLOCK OVERHAUL
Blocking has changed significantly from vanilla, here are all the changes:
Block Experience and weapons
Let's start with the (potentially) most divisive decision. Blocking with a weapon will now be extremely ineffective, you will take massive stamina damage and you will not block 100% of the damage. Additionally you will gain NO blocking experience when blocking with a weapon, essentially the block tree is now the SHIELD tree. What this comes down to is that blocking with a weapon is terrible in most situations.
Why did I make this change? I feel like blocking with a weapon, realistically, should not be effective at all and that parrying should be used instead. Weapons can still parry to mitigate damage, and if you are using a dodge mod, which is HIGHLY recommended, you can also dodge to avoid damage. All of this means that conversely, shields are now unique and using a shield will drastically change your playstyle, which is what allows for build and playstyle diversity.
Stamina cost
Blocking now costs only stamina and will block all damage. The stamina cost is based on the damage of the attacker. If your enemy is a puny skeever it will hardly cost anything, but blocking an attack from a draugr deathlord will cost a significant amount of stamina. This is not achieved by restoring damage taken via a script, I simply used one of the game settings to my advantage and thus there is no danger of dying when blocking at low health.
Blocking now halts all stamina regeneration, this is done to prevent turtling and becoming pretty much invincible. If you are blocking and you stamina bar is reduced to zero, you will become guard broken. Breaking a characters guard will stagger them and they will receive increased damage while staggered, no longer will NPCs just block all day long without being punished.
Scaling
The stamina cost now scales depending on your block level, perks taken and the quality of your shield.
The level scaling is as follows: blocking will cost 0.25% less stamina per level of block, this results in 25% reduced cost at level 100.
There are also block perks that reduce the stamina cost by an additional 20% both in the vanillla and ordinator versions.
Last but not least, the quality of your shield will also contribute to the stamina cost reduction. I have created a tier system based on the base armor rating of a shield.
These are the tiers:
Tier D (22 Base armor or lower)
Some examples: Elven, Iron, Imperial, Hide, Bonemold
Tier C (Between 22 and 26)
Ex: Chitin, Steel, Blades, Dawnguard, Dwarven, Improved Bonemold
Tier B (Between 26 an 30)
Ex: Glass, Dragonscale, Nordic, Orcish, Stahlrim
Tier A (Higher than 30)
Ex: Ebony, Dragonplate, Daedric
The above list are some examples, I cannot list every single shield in the game, If i was more skilled I would have probably implemented some way to display these tiers in the UI but alas. Feel free to make something like that if you like the mod, permission granted!
The obvious caveat here is that all these tiers are based on BASE armor and not the current armor rating after scaling and tempering. I could not find a way to get the current armor through papyrus and keep the scripts reasonable, so for now this is what we have. The armor rating of the shields still gives you more damage resistance so I guess tempering is still useful.
Short clip of some blocking with a shield.
CHANGES TO BLOCK PERKS
To accomodate all the changes I made to blocking I had to change some perks and descriptions in the block tree.
Changes to the vanilla perk tree:
- Block tree description now reads: "The art of blocking an enemy's blows with a shield. Blocking with a shield mitigates all physical damage at the cost of stamina."
- Shield Wall Perks: "Blocking with a shield costs 4/8/12/16/20% less stamina."
- Power Bash: "Able to do a power bash with a shield."
- Deflect Arrows is Replaced by Stand your Ground: "Negate all stagger effects while blocking with a shield."
- Deadly Bash: "Bashing with a shield does five times more damage."
- Quick Reflexes: "Time slows down if you are blocking with a shield during an enemy's power attack."
- Block Runner is replaced by Unbreakable:
"While blocking with a shield, the first time you would be guard broken restore half your stamina bar instead. Limited to one time per combat encounter."
Overall I am quite satisfied wth how the vanilla tree looks now. Using a shield is now a bigger part of the identity of your build and you get some exclusive tools to deal with enemies that other weapons don't have access to.
Changes to Ordinator perk tree:
The Ordinator block tree was A LOT harder to change, mainly because so much of it revolves around the timed block mechanic. Since the Parry mechanic is not exclusive to shields, it felt wrong to have Parry related perks in the block tree given that weapons now would not benefit from these perks. Ultimately I had to change many of the perks as well as sadly, remove some of them. I tried to keep the Ordinator feel in the tree but I'm not Enai so the quality may vary, although I think what we have now is much better than ignoring all of the timed block related perks. Below you will find a list of the changes made.
- Block tree description now reads: "The art of blocking an enemy's blows with a shield. Blocking mitigates all damage at the cost of stamina."
- Block Mastery: The second tier now requires level 40.
Changed effect: "Blocking with a shield costs 10/20% less stamina. Additionally, blocking with a shield costs 0.25% less stamina per level of block."
- Power Bash: "Able to do a power bash with a shield by holding down Attack while blocking."
- Skull Rattler: "Bashing with a shield deals 3% more damage per point of Stamina."
- Cast Aside: "Interrupting an attack with a power bash with a shield knocks the attacker to the ground. Targets can only be affected once every 30 seconds."
- Deflect Arrows is replaced by Stand your Ground(Lvl.35): "While blocking with a shield, you are immune to all staggers."
- Dominion is replaced by Do Not Relent: "While blocking with a shield, standing stilll grants you 100% health regeneration."
- Quick Reflexes: "Time slows down if you are blocking with a shield during an enemy's power attack."
- Timed Block is replaced by Unbreakable(Lvl.30):
"While blocking with a shield, the first time your guard would be broken restore half your maximum stamina instead. Limited to once per combat encounter."
- Block Runner is replaced by The Art of Battle(Lvl.60):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full set of light armor, bashing an enemy leaves them vulnerable, increasing your damage against that target for 2 seconds.
- Hold The Line is replaced by Not A Scratch(Lvl.80):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full set of light armor, you gain 20% increased damage as long as you remain at 100% health. "
- Apocalypse Proof(Lvl.40): "Keeping your shield raised will decrease the damage of incoming fire, frost and shock spells and effects by 25%."
- Apocalypse Proof(Lvl.70): "Can parry spells with a shield to mitigate incoming fire, frost and shock spells and effects, reducing their damage to zero."
- Timing streak is replaced by The Rock(Lvl.55):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, you become immune to critical hits, arrows ricochet off your shield and while standing still without blocking or attacking you are immune to staggers."
- Dragon Tail is replaced by Retaliate(Lvl.65):
" If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, decreases all damage you deal by 25%. Grants the Retaliate power. If wearing a shield and full heavy armor, activate retaliate to store all stamina damage blocked for the next 5 seconds. Afterwards, receive a % damage increase equal a fraction of the damage blocked for the next 3 seconds."
- Break Their Teeth(Lvl.75):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, bashing enemies will send them flying. This effect has a cooldown of 15 seconds and large enemies are immune to this effect."
- Deliverance is replace by Imperishable(Lvl.90):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, blocking a hit from a weapon while Retaliate is active, decreases that enemies damage against you by 2% for the rest of the fight. This effect stacks indefinitely."
- Dragon Scales was removed.
- Poke the Dragon was removed.
- Mocking Blow was removed.
Let's talk about retaliate for a moment. This is basically the tank power, it has no cooldown so it can be constantly used and the damage boost you get from it has the potential to be ridiculous. Since I fell like in ordinator one-handed damage is not that high, this kind of ability works well for a tank type character. The 25% damage reduction is to incentivize the blocking playstyle and commit to this character archetype, and to balance the damage output for retaliate. If I did not have the damage reduction, any one handed build could pick the skill up with little to no detriment. This skill completely changes the way you approach combat as a more defensive block build.
As you can see I had to remove some perks, the reason they were removed is because they had to do with timed blocking and bashing with weapons. Because the blocking tree is now exclusively for shields I feel like it's fine if there are fewer perks. I tried to be as creative as I could with these perks without implementing any overly script heavy effects. Hopefully I managed to keep the Ordinator feel. Feel free to make suggestions as to how this tree could be improved!
LIMIT BREAK
(I'm not actually that bad at aiming, it was just to demonstrate the effect I swear.)
Limit Break is the new ability for mage characters. With all the changes to melee combat it only felt natural to give mages some love as well. Something that always bothered me when playing a mage is that when you're out of magicka, you are basically just running around waiting for your magicka to regenerate. This takes you out of the action and is a detriment to the combat experience. To fix these issues I added the Limit Break ability.
What it does:
This ability can only be used when you have no magicka. While in combat, use Limit Break to convert half of your maximum stamina to magicka at the cost of having no stamina regeneration for the rest of the encounter. This ability can be recast, if you are out of stamina Limit Break will consume health instead. After the encounter your stamina will regenerate as usual. This ability CAN kill you if you are not careful.
Limit Break is a lesser power and has no cooldown.
As you may have noticed in the clip, this ability allows you to keep casting and stay in the action but with a severe drawback. This ability is best used when you need that extra bit of magicka to finish off your opponent or when you know it will be safe for you to miss the stamina regeneration. You will have to make a decision, do you want more damage at the cost of survivability? I think this ability feels balanced, if you have no more stamina regeneration you will not be able to dodge and your mobility will suffer, also trading health is quite a big risk.
I also think flavour wise this fits a mage quite well, pushing yourself to the very limit of your abilities.
How to get it:
To get Limit Break, simply take the first perk in the destruction tree and you will automatically receive the ability. Since the first perk usually has no level requirement, everyone can technically get it.
Why the destruction tree? I think destruction magic really is the one school that needs it since you are so mana hungry. Most mage builds will use some form of destruction and if you are an illusion or conjuration only mage, in my experience magicka is much less of a problem.
PRESS THE ATTACK
(You can hear the sound cues to indicate where you are in the combo)
Just like mages get Limit Break, archers now get Press The Attack. Archers are famously known for being very strong in skyrim, a lot of the time archer builds will go the stealth route though. Although I enjoy playing stealth builds, I have always been a fan of the "In your face" type archer playstyle, dodging and sticking arrow after arrow in your enemies until they collapse. I took inspiration from the Monster Hunter series for this ability, I really like the way archers feel in those games.
What it does:
This is a passive ability.
While not sneaking, after your first shot, for the next 3 secons your next shot deals 10% more damage, this effect resets every 3 shots for up to 20% extra damage on the third shot. Essentially this is a combo system, successfully landing your 3 shot combo will increase your damage output significantly. This ability rewards staying in combat and being at close ranges, works especially well with the Quick Shot perk. You can hear audio cues for each of the shots to provide some feedback so you can tell if it's actually increasing your damage.
How to get it:
Much like the mage ability, you get this ability by taking the very first perk in the archery tree.
COMPATIBILITY
Any mod that edits the same records as this mod is technically incompatible but might be with a patch. Records edited by this mod:
- Combat styles
- Movement types
- Actor values
- Game Settings
- Idle animations
Any mods that edit these same records will conflict.
This mod was made to be a standalone combat mod, any other mods that change the combat will conflict with this mod. I recommend trying this mod out with all my recommendations and then, if you like it, add mods to change things to your liking.
POPULAR MODS THAT ARE INCOMPATIBLE:
Mortal enemies - My mod already changes the same things, although if you prefer mortal enemies you could overwrite my mod with it.
Realistic Melee Range (And similar mods) - My mod changes these things as well, you can overwrite if you prefer another though.
Any combat mod like Wildcat and Blade and Blunt is probably not advised to combine with this mod. These mods change very similar things as mine and are made with an entirely different combat experience in mind.
PARTIALLY COMPATIBLE:
SRCEO - You can run tis mod along with my mod but make sure my mod loads after, or run SRCEO after mine if you prefer that. Although SRCEOs combat styles were not balanced for this mod.
Regarding mods like SkySA, ABR and CGO, this mod was made without those mods in mind and so I did not test it with them. Technically they should be compatible but I feel like these mods alter the combat experience so much that it might break the balance a little bit. Do not let this deter you from trying though.
Any mod that edits parts of the same records might work together with this mod, just check in SSEedit what the conflict is and decide if you want to use my version or that of a different mod.
INSTALLATION
If you are running this mod along with Ordinator and Skyrim Revamped make sure you load my mod after them.
In any other case, just install with your preferred mod manager and keep the compatibility notes in mind for load order.
Once in game, you have to initialize the mod through the MCM.
UPDATING
To update the mod, select the update option in the MCM, save your game, download and install the latest version and re-initialize the mod.
ABOUT GAME VERSIONS
This should work on SE and AE. I did all of my testing on AE, that's the version I play on. That being said I see no reason why this should'nt work on SE.
MY ANIMATION SETUP
For those interested, here's a list of the animations I use:
Vanargand Animations - Female Idle Walk and Run
Leviathan Animations - Male Idle Walk and Run
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Idle Walk and Run
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Thrust Attacks
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Strike Attacks
Vanargand Animations - One Handed Normal Attacks
Vanargand Animations - One Handed Power Attacks
Leviathan Animations - Two-Handed Normal Attacks
Leviathan Animations - Two-Handed Power Attacks
Smooth Combat non Combat Animations
Smooth Magic Casting Animations
Smooth Random Magic Idle Animations
Leviathan Animations - Sprint
Movement Behavior Overhaul
MBO - TDM Patch
Archery animations are standard animations from AGO
CREDITS
EnaiSiaion for Ordinator and all his other fantastic mods, from which I took a lot of inspiration.
Verolevi and Smooth for the wonderful animations seen in the demo clips.
Bethesda for making the game, truly the gift that keeps on giving.
The Nexus community for making so many incredible mods and constantly breathing new life into this now 11 yeal old game.
- Attack commitment for all characters and most creatures.
- Changed AI combat styles and movement.
- Changed Movement speeds for all actions to make the combat slower and more tactical.
- Stagger system.
- Parry system.
- Stamina cost for attacks depending on weapon weight.
- Stamina regeneration greatly increased.
- No more base health regeneration, can be turned on/off through MCM.
- New powers for archer and mage classes.
- Complete overhaul of block mechanics.
- No more recoil animation when attacking blocking enemies.
- Changed perks for the block tree to better suit the changes made to blocking. Both for Vanilla perks and Ordinator.
- Removed all kill moves (Now configurable in MCM).
- Reduced range of all weapons.
- Fixed sniper enemies and ultra instinct dodges by NPCs.
- You can no longer attack at 0 stamina and power attacks have a minimum cost.
- Magicka regenerates at the same rate in and out of combat.
Most features are customizabe through MCM
THINGS I'M WORKING ON ATM
- Adding Hyper armor to two-handed weapons(maybe).
STAGGER SYSTEM HAS NOW BEEN REWORKED!
DISCLAIMER
This mod will make your game significantly harder and as such, will not be for everyone. I feel like although the game is harder, it is much more satisfying to play.
Also this mod was designed with a few other mods in mind, without them the experience might not be as good so I HIGHLY recommend you download these mods.
Feel free to experiment though, that is what modding is all about afterall.
The two main mods that are pretty much must have are TDM and Smoothcam, trust me these mods are (literally) game changers.
Recommended Mods:
True Directional Movement - This mod single handedly changed the third person skyrim experience and I can not recommend it enough.
Smoothcam - Highly recommended, changes the third person camera and is very customizable.
Skyrim Revamped - Loot and Encounter Zones - I balanced my mod with this mod in mind as this is my encounter zone mod of choice, although any other similar mod should work, like MLU.
Ordinator - If you use Ordinator, I have also made an Ordinator version for this mod, integrating my changes into the block tree as well as some other abilities. Full list of changes further below in the description.
Any dodge mod - Sadly I feel like making my own is out of my reach for now, maybe in the future I will consider it but for now I HIGHLY recommend getting a dodge mod. My personal choice is Tk Dodge.
3rd Person Camera Stagger Remover - Fixes the annoying camera shake when getting hit.
Animations - I recommend installing replacement animations for most of the vanilla actions. I personally use a combination of the Vanargand and Leviathan animations by Verolevi. I also use many of Smooths animations, they are extremely well done.
Dual Wield Parrying - Without this mod playing a dual wield build will not feel as good.
AGO - Improves bow gameplay and combines very nicely with this mod.
Ice scating fixed for real - Makes the attack animations feel a lot nicer.
WHY DOES THIS MOD EXIST?
There are so many incredible combat mods out there made by authors that are infinitely more skilled than I am, many of which I have tried. However I have always found that there was something that I wanted to change or do differently, especially when it comes to third person combat. I would not call this mod revolutionary or anything like that but I feel like with this mod I have achieved a state of gameplay and balance that I am quite satisfied with.
When it comes to third person combat, vanilla skyrim is in my opinion, quite lacking. There is no reliable way to avoid damage and most of the combat relies on pure stats and requires little thought and decision making. You have probably heard this sentiment before and though at this point it has been said many times, vanilla skyrim combat is very much "Tank everything and right click spam, or alternatively play a stealth archer". What I set out to do with this mod is to take the vanilla systems and make them more satisfying, as well as add some new systems that compliment what is already there.
I designed this mod to be completely independent from other combat mods and I recommend running this mod as the only combat mod in your list.
The overall combat experience with this mod is somewhere between Vanilla+ and full overhaul(but not quite). I tried to preserve the essence of the vanilla game as much as possible, I think that the closer you stay to the original game the smoother the overall experience will be.
COMBAT STYLES, MOVEMENT AND OTHER CHANGES
Movement
The first thing that needed changing was the movement. (Almost)Every creature and NPC now has attack commitment, meaning that enemies and the player can no longer correct their attack direction. Once an attack has been input, the character will be locked in place for the duration of the animation. What this does is make most attacks avoidable with dodges or good spacing, as well as leaving the character exposed to a counter attack if the attack was timed or aimed poorly.
These changes also affect mages and maksmen, mages will move much slower while channeling their spells and archers will also be slower while holding their bow drawn. This might seem harsh at first but I felt like this needed to be done to even the playing field, you will find that these playstyles are still extremely strong due to their range advantage and the stagger mechanics.
The actual movement speeds have also been greatly reduced from vanilla skyrim. Overall you will find that you now run and sprint a bit slower and walk significantly faster.
These slower movement speeds slow the combat down and add more weight to the feel of the game. This makes for much more intense duels and combat encounters as well as add some realism.
Combat Styles
Combat styles for NPCs have also been changed. Enemies now play much more defensively or aggressively depending on the situation. Most of the changes I made were to balance the AI around the added or changed features I introduced.
Destruction magic
Destruction magic has received a nerf. Still with all the movement limitations destruction felt too strong, magic resistance is not very common and cannot be blocked, especially concentration type spells. This makes mages extremely hard to deal with, to balance this destruction damage has been nefed by 30% all across the board.
This may seem like alot, but it now feels much more balanced and with the new ability I added for mages (more about this further down) this will not be a problem.
NPC magic casters will now also behave differently, they will now very rarely cast concentration spells. This is because when the player uses concentrations spells it's fun, but when the AI does it it's not. Especially when it comes to frostbite spells, they will drain your stamina and for melee classes this is a death sentence.
This results in most magic damage now being dodgeable/avoidable.
Health Regeneration
Health now (Optionally) no longer regenerates passively. To clarify, there is no more BASE health regeneration, increasing your health regeneration through enchantments or other means still works just fine and will instead just enable regeneration instead of increase it like in vanilla. I personally like this change, it makes it so that you need to prepare before you head out, buy/make potions, invest in restoration magic etc. This change also makes health regeneration effects much better, I feel like in vanilla they are not that useful.
Kill Moves
Kill moves have been completely disabled. I feel like kill moves are extremely unbalanced. With encounter zone mods you will most likely be underleveled at all times, this means that every enemy just one shots you with a kill move without allowing you to outplay or outsmart them. For that reason, killmoves are gone. I know that I could have simply changed the conditions, but I've never been a big fan of the killcams and feel like the game is none the worse for wear without them.
This is as of 1.0.1 configurable in the MCM
Weapon range
I changed the range of the weapons to be more fair and match the size of the weapons more. I still left some extra reach as I think that having the range too short can be a little frustrating. In my opinion this is a good balance between realism and enjoyable gameplay.
Block area fixes
The block plane when holding up your weapon or shield is now much wider, you will block everything in front of you and a little bit from the sides. Only from behind will you be completely exposed when blocking.
STAGGER SYSTEM
To reward the player for capitalizing on an attack I had to implement a stagger system. Most enemies can now stagger except for large monsters and dragons.
How it works:
The stagger system now works based on a (hidden) stagger meter. As long as this meter is NOT full the target will keep staggering from hits. When the meter fills up, the target will enter a cooldown state in which they can not be staggered for the duration (cooldown is configurable). The first attack will ALWAYS be a guaranteed stagger regardless of the weapon, this is to make sure you don't get hit back when attacking a good opening.
Weapons will now fill this meter depending on their weight. There is an inverse relationship between the weight of the weapon and the amount of meter a weapon will fill.
What this means is that heavy weapons will fill the meter slower, allowing for multiple consecutive staggers, while lighter weapons will fill the meter quicker, making them stagger less. This is because heavy weapons swing slower, so it is harder to find an opening. Lighter weapons obviously are much faster.
To balance the low stagger of lighter weapons, there are now threshold staggers. Characters are now guaranteed to stagger once they reach 60% and 30% health.
This will make it so lighter weapons still have plenty of stagger opportunities as long as the DPS is high.
This is how the stagger of a weapon is calculated (for those that are interested in the math):
The stagger meter ranges from 0 (empty) / 100 (full)
The formula: K / WeaponWeight * StaggerWeightMult= StaggerMeter Amount
Where K = constant for stagger, the constant is 1224
WeaponWeight = Weight of the weapon
StaggerWeightMult = multiplier for stagger amount, defeault is 1 (Configurable through MCM).
Examples:
Iron Sword weighs 9 units. 1224 / 9 * 1 = 136
This means that after just 1 hit with an iron sword, the target will enter a cooldown state (136 is enough to fill the whole meter of 100).
Iron Warhammer weighs 24 units. 1224 / 24 * 1 = 51
This means that it would take 2 hits to fill the stagger meter with this weapon, resulting in 2 consecutive staggers before they enter cooldown.
The StaggerWeightMult can be configured in MCM, lower values than 1 will decrease the amount of meter any weapon fills, meaning that it will result in more staggers all across the board. Higher values than 1 will of course do the opposite.
TLDR without the math: Light weapon = less consecutive stagger. Heavy weapon = more consecutive stagger.
The stagger system is there to reward the player for executing a good attack and allow to chain attacks together without needing to take damage, but beware the player can also stagger. This will make it so that comitting to a poor attack is a potentially fatal mistake. This also makes it viable to take risks and be able to interrupt an already attacking enemy or lock down an npc with a fast weapon like a dagger to allow for multiple hit combos. To balance staggerlocking it is advised to keep the numbers reasonable.
Magic will not stagger. This choice if twofold. With concentration spells being in the game, and due to the nature of how they work, having them be able to stagger would be completely broken and result in constant stagger locking. Second reason is that both Ordinator and vanilla destruction trees already have perks that enable stagger on projectile spells. The alternative would be to remove concentration spells altogether but they definitely have their place in the game and I would like to keep this mod a s compatible as possible.
ATTACKS COST STAMINA
To incorporate resource management into the combat, attacks now consume stamina. This is so that you can no longer spam attacks and in turn staggerlock your opponent and to add more decision making and thought into the combat. To compensate for the stamina cost, now stamina regenerates much faster, as you can see in the video demonstration.
Bows will also consume stamina. Holding a bow drawn will consume 8 stamina per second. Having this value configurable through MCM is something I really wanted to implement but this would imply having a constanly updating script every second, I decided against that and opted to implement it in a more performance friendly way. If you are interested in the technical details and have any suggestions on how to better tackle this issue I would love to hear it.
On top of attacks costing stamina, you will now not be able to issue an attack command when at 0 stamina and power attacks will require a minimum of 30 stamina.
How it works:
Stamina cost is determined by a simple formula, MinimumStamina + (WeaponWeight * WeightMult) where:
MinimumStamina = Minimum stamina cost for any weapon regardless of weight, the default value is 8.
WeaponWeight = The actual weight of the weapon.
WeightMult = Multiplier for weapon weight, default is 1.33. This means that the cost will be 1.33 per unit of weight.
Example: Iron dagger weighs 2 units, 8 + (2 * 1.33) = 10.66 ~ 11 stamina.
The minimum stamina and the weight multiplier can be configured through the MCM.
PARRY SYSTEM
(Sorry for no audio in the video, I had some music playing and forgot to pause it while recording, youtube forced me to mute it)
Call it what you will, timed block, parry, you've seen it before and maybe you are tired of seeing this feature in combat mods, and I can understand why. In all seriousness, I feel like a parry feature really is the most effective way to tackle damage mitigation. It is a high risk high reward mechanic and it rewards skilled play.
I tried to make it as responsive as possible and added some visual feedback in the form of a red shader to indicate that the enemy is vulnerable.
How it works:
Every single weapon and shield will be able to do a parry, if you block right before the opponent's attack hits you, they will become staggered and receive increased damage for 3 seconds. Performing a successful parry will cost no stamina and will cause no health damage.
NPCs will not be able to perform parries, only the player will have this ability. The default parry window is 0.3 seconds from the moment you raise your guard. This may seem like a short time but as you can see in the video it gives you plenty of time.
You can configure the parry window in the MCM.
BLOCK OVERHAUL
Blocking has changed significantly from vanilla, here are all the changes:
Block Experience and weapons
Let's start with the (potentially) most divisive decision. Blocking with a weapon will now be extremely ineffective, you will take massive stamina damage and you will not block 100% of the damage. Additionally you will gain NO blocking experience when blocking with a weapon, essentially the block tree is now the SHIELD tree. What this comes down to is that blocking with a weapon is terrible in most situations.
Why did I make this change? I feel like blocking with a weapon, realistically, should not be effective at all and that parrying should be used instead. Weapons can still parry to mitigate damage, and if you are using a dodge mod, which is HIGHLY recommended, you can also dodge to avoid damage. All of this means that conversely, shields are now unique and using a shield will drastically change your playstyle, which is what allows for build and playstyle diversity.
Stamina cost
Blocking now costs only stamina and will block all damage. The stamina cost is based on the damage of the attacker. If your enemy is a puny skeever it will hardly cost anything, but blocking an attack from a draugr deathlord will cost a significant amount of stamina. This is not achieved by restoring damage taken via a script, I simply used one of the game settings to my advantage and thus there is no danger of dying when blocking at low health.
Blocking now halts all stamina regeneration, this is done to prevent turtling and becoming pretty much invincible. If you are blocking and you stamina bar is reduced to zero, you will become guard broken. Breaking a characters guard will stagger them and they will receive increased damage while staggered, no longer will NPCs just block all day long without being punished.
Scaling
The stamina cost now scales depending on your block level, perks taken and the quality of your shield.
The level scaling is as follows: blocking will cost 0.25% less stamina per level of block, this results in 25% reduced cost at level 100.
There are also block perks that reduce the stamina cost by an additional 20% both in the vanillla and ordinator versions.
Last but not least, the quality of your shield will also contribute to the stamina cost reduction. I have created a tier system based on the base armor rating of a shield.
These are the tiers:
Tier D (22 Base armor or lower)
Some examples: Elven, Iron, Imperial, Hide, Bonemold
Tier C (Between 22 and 26)
Ex: Chitin, Steel, Blades, Dawnguard, Dwarven, Improved Bonemold
Tier B (Between 26 an 30)
Ex: Glass, Dragonscale, Nordic, Orcish, Stahlrim
Tier A (Higher than 30)
Ex: Ebony, Dragonplate, Daedric
The above list are some examples, I cannot list every single shield in the game, If i was more skilled I would have probably implemented some way to display these tiers in the UI but alas. Feel free to make something like that if you like the mod, permission granted!
The obvious caveat here is that all these tiers are based on BASE armor and not the current armor rating after scaling and tempering. I could not find a way to get the current armor through papyrus and keep the scripts reasonable, so for now this is what we have. The armor rating of the shields still gives you more damage resistance so I guess tempering is still useful.
Short clip of some blocking with a shield.
CHANGES TO BLOCK PERKS
To accomodate all the changes I made to blocking I had to change some perks and descriptions in the block tree.
Changes to the vanilla perk tree:
- Block tree description now reads: "The art of blocking an enemy's blows with a shield. Blocking with a shield mitigates all physical damage at the cost of stamina."
- Shield Wall Perks: "Blocking with a shield costs 4/8/12/16/20% less stamina."
- Power Bash: "Able to do a power bash with a shield."
- Deflect Arrows is Replaced by Stand your Ground: "Negate all stagger effects while blocking with a shield."
- Deadly Bash: "Bashing with a shield does five times more damage."
- Quick Reflexes: "Time slows down if you are blocking with a shield during an enemy's power attack."
- Block Runner is replaced by Unbreakable:
"While blocking with a shield, the first time you would be guard broken restore half your stamina bar instead. Limited to one time per combat encounter."
Overall I am quite satisfied wth how the vanilla tree looks now. Using a shield is now a bigger part of the identity of your build and you get some exclusive tools to deal with enemies that other weapons don't have access to.
Changes to Ordinator perk tree:
The Ordinator block tree was A LOT harder to change, mainly because so much of it revolves around the timed block mechanic. Since the Parry mechanic is not exclusive to shields, it felt wrong to have Parry related perks in the block tree given that weapons now would not benefit from these perks. Ultimately I had to change many of the perks as well as sadly, remove some of them. I tried to keep the Ordinator feel in the tree but I'm not Enai so the quality may vary, although I think what we have now is much better than ignoring all of the timed block related perks. Below you will find a list of the changes made.
- Block tree description now reads: "The art of blocking an enemy's blows with a shield. Blocking mitigates all damage at the cost of stamina."
- Block Mastery: The second tier now requires level 40.
Changed effect: "Blocking with a shield costs 10/20% less stamina. Additionally, blocking with a shield costs 0.25% less stamina per level of block."
- Power Bash: "Able to do a power bash with a shield by holding down Attack while blocking."
- Skull Rattler: "Bashing with a shield deals 3% more damage per point of Stamina."
- Cast Aside: "Interrupting an attack with a power bash with a shield knocks the attacker to the ground. Targets can only be affected once every 30 seconds."
- Deflect Arrows is replaced by Stand your Ground(Lvl.35): "While blocking with a shield, you are immune to all staggers."
- Dominion is replaced by Do Not Relent: "While blocking with a shield, standing stilll grants you 100% health regeneration."
- Quick Reflexes: "Time slows down if you are blocking with a shield during an enemy's power attack."
- Timed Block is replaced by Unbreakable(Lvl.30):
"While blocking with a shield, the first time your guard would be broken restore half your maximum stamina instead. Limited to once per combat encounter."
- Block Runner is replaced by The Art of Battle(Lvl.60):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full set of light armor, bashing an enemy leaves them vulnerable, increasing your damage against that target for 2 seconds.
- Hold The Line is replaced by Not A Scratch(Lvl.80):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full set of light armor, you gain 20% increased damage as long as you remain at 100% health. "
- Apocalypse Proof(Lvl.40): "Keeping your shield raised will decrease the damage of incoming fire, frost and shock spells and effects by 25%."
- Apocalypse Proof(Lvl.70): "Can parry spells with a shield to mitigate incoming fire, frost and shock spells and effects, reducing their damage to zero."
- Timing streak is replaced by The Rock(Lvl.55):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, you become immune to critical hits, arrows ricochet off your shield and while standing still without blocking or attacking you are immune to staggers."
- Dragon Tail is replaced by Retaliate(Lvl.65):
" If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, decreases all damage you deal by 25%. Grants the Retaliate power. If wearing a shield and full heavy armor, activate retaliate to store all stamina damage blocked for the next 5 seconds. Afterwards, receive a % damage increase equal a fraction of the damage blocked for the next 3 seconds."
- Break Their Teeth(Lvl.75):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, bashing enemies will send them flying. This effect has a cooldown of 15 seconds and large enemies are immune to this effect."
- Deliverance is replace by Imperishable(Lvl.90):
"If you have a shield equipped and a full suit of heavy armor, blocking a hit from a weapon while Retaliate is active, decreases that enemies damage against you by 2% for the rest of the fight. This effect stacks indefinitely."
- Dragon Scales was removed.
- Poke the Dragon was removed.
- Mocking Blow was removed.
Let's talk about retaliate for a moment. This is basically the tank power, it has no cooldown so it can be constantly used and the damage boost you get from it has the potential to be ridiculous. Since I fell like in ordinator one-handed damage is not that high, this kind of ability works well for a tank type character. The 25% damage reduction is to incentivize the blocking playstyle and commit to this character archetype, and to balance the damage output for retaliate. If I did not have the damage reduction, any one handed build could pick the skill up with little to no detriment. This skill completely changes the way you approach combat as a more defensive block build.
As you can see I had to remove some perks, the reason they were removed is because they had to do with timed blocking and bashing with weapons. Because the blocking tree is now exclusively for shields I feel like it's fine if there are fewer perks. I tried to be as creative as I could with these perks without implementing any overly script heavy effects. Hopefully I managed to keep the Ordinator feel. Feel free to make suggestions as to how this tree could be improved!
LIMIT BREAK
(I'm not actually that bad at aiming, it was just to demonstrate the effect I swear.)
Limit Break is the new ability for mage characters. With all the changes to melee combat it only felt natural to give mages some love as well. Something that always bothered me when playing a mage is that when you're out of magicka, you are basically just running around waiting for your magicka to regenerate. This takes you out of the action and is a detriment to the combat experience. To fix these issues I added the Limit Break ability.
What it does:
This ability can only be used when you have no magicka. While in combat, use Limit Break to convert half of your maximum stamina to magicka at the cost of having no stamina regeneration for the rest of the encounter. This ability can be recast, if you are out of stamina Limit Break will consume health instead. After the encounter your stamina will regenerate as usual. This ability CAN kill you if you are not careful.
Limit Break is a lesser power and has no cooldown.
As you may have noticed in the clip, this ability allows you to keep casting and stay in the action but with a severe drawback. This ability is best used when you need that extra bit of magicka to finish off your opponent or when you know it will be safe for you to miss the stamina regeneration. You will have to make a decision, do you want more damage at the cost of survivability? I think this ability feels balanced, if you have no more stamina regeneration you will not be able to dodge and your mobility will suffer, also trading health is quite a big risk.
I also think flavour wise this fits a mage quite well, pushing yourself to the very limit of your abilities.
How to get it:
To get Limit Break, simply take the first perk in the destruction tree and you will automatically receive the ability. Since the first perk usually has no level requirement, everyone can technically get it.
Why the destruction tree? I think destruction magic really is the one school that needs it since you are so mana hungry. Most mage builds will use some form of destruction and if you are an illusion or conjuration only mage, in my experience magicka is much less of a problem.
PRESS THE ATTACK
(You can hear the sound cues to indicate where you are in the combo)
Just like mages get Limit Break, archers now get Press The Attack. Archers are famously known for being very strong in skyrim, a lot of the time archer builds will go the stealth route though. Although I enjoy playing stealth builds, I have always been a fan of the "In your face" type archer playstyle, dodging and sticking arrow after arrow in your enemies until they collapse. I took inspiration from the Monster Hunter series for this ability, I really like the way archers feel in those games.
What it does:
This is a passive ability.
While not sneaking, after your first shot, for the next 3 secons your next shot deals 10% more damage, this effect resets every 3 shots for up to 20% extra damage on the third shot. Essentially this is a combo system, successfully landing your 3 shot combo will increase your damage output significantly. This ability rewards staying in combat and being at close ranges, works especially well with the Quick Shot perk. You can hear audio cues for each of the shots to provide some feedback so you can tell if it's actually increasing your damage.
How to get it:
Much like the mage ability, you get this ability by taking the very first perk in the archery tree.
COMPATIBILITY
Any mod that edits the same records as this mod is technically incompatible but might be with a patch. Records edited by this mod:
- Combat styles
- Movement types
- Actor values
- Game Settings
- Idle animations
Any mods that edit these same records will conflict.
This mod was made to be a standalone combat mod, any other mods that change the combat will conflict with this mod. I recommend trying this mod out with all my recommendations and then, if you like it, add mods to change things to your liking.
POPULAR MODS THAT ARE INCOMPATIBLE:
Mortal enemies - My mod already changes the same things, although if you prefer mortal enemies you could overwrite my mod with it.
Realistic Melee Range (And similar mods) - My mod changes these things as well, you can overwrite if you prefer another though.
Any combat mod like Wildcat and Blade and Blunt is probably not advised to combine with this mod. These mods change very similar things as mine and are made with an entirely different combat experience in mind.
PARTIALLY COMPATIBLE:
SRCEO - You can run tis mod along with my mod but make sure my mod loads after, or run SRCEO after mine if you prefer that. Although SRCEOs combat styles were not balanced for this mod.
Regarding mods like SkySA, ABR and CGO, this mod was made without those mods in mind and so I did not test it with them. Technically they should be compatible but I feel like these mods alter the combat experience so much that it might break the balance a little bit. Do not let this deter you from trying though.
Any mod that edits parts of the same records might work together with this mod, just check in SSEedit what the conflict is and decide if you want to use my version or that of a different mod.
INSTALLATION
If you are running this mod along with Ordinator and Skyrim Revamped make sure you load my mod after them.
In any other case, just install with your preferred mod manager and keep the compatibility notes in mind for load order.
Once in game, you have to initialize the mod through the MCM.
UPDATING
To update the mod, select the update option in the MCM, save your game, download and install the latest version and re-initialize the mod.
ABOUT GAME VERSIONS
This should work on SE and AE. I did all of my testing on AE, that's the version I play on. That being said I see no reason why this should'nt work on SE.
MY ANIMATION SETUP
For those interested, here's a list of the animations I use:
Vanargand Animations - Female Idle Walk and Run
Leviathan Animations - Male Idle Walk and Run
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Idle Walk and Run
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Thrust Attacks
Vanargand Animations - Sneak Strike Attacks
Vanargand Animations - One Handed Normal Attacks
Vanargand Animations - One Handed Power Attacks
Leviathan Animations - Two-Handed Normal Attacks
Leviathan Animations - Two-Handed Power Attacks
Smooth Combat non Combat Animations
Smooth Magic Casting Animations
Smooth Random Magic Idle Animations
Leviathan Animations - Sprint
Movement Behavior Overhaul
MBO - TDM Patch
Archery animations are standard animations from AGO
CREDITS
EnaiSiaion for Ordinator and all his other fantastic mods, from which I took a lot of inspiration.
Verolevi and Smooth for the wonderful animations seen in the demo clips.
Bethesda for making the game, truly the gift that keeps on giving.
The Nexus community for making so many incredible mods and constantly breathing new life into this now 11 yeal old game.