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About this mod
Adds directional combat system to skyrim, inspired by Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Mordhau, For Honor, and other swordfighting games. No more boring blocking! Includes realistic animations based on historical combat (hema)
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Mount and blade mode has been added
Warnings
This makes 1vX fights VERY hard. Use a mod that allows you to 1v1 enemies, such as Wait Your Turn or bring lots of followers to soak hits. There is some 1vX mechanics that should help though.
This is not meant to be used with a dodge mod. You can, but it defeats the point of the mod.
I haven't profiled the performance impact yet.
Want something more realistic (but not that realistic) than the usual action RPG mechanics? Tired of jumping and rolling around instead of clashing swords? Want some more depth to your melee combat? Then this mod is for you!
This is a directional combat mod, inspired by multiple swordfighting games such as Kingdom Come Deliverance and Mordhau but is not an exact copy of any one of them, just takes mechanics from them. Is intended to add new mechanics and depth to the relatively meh combat system in Skryim right now.
At the moment there is only 3rd person animations.
How To Install
There are a bunch of requirements so make sure you get those.
Think you can just install through mod manager and run nemesis. It's mostly an SKSE plugin. I wouldn't worry too much about uninstalling either.
DirectionModRaces.esp - This file is an optional file that allows support for non-weapon carrying creatures and NPCs to participate in directional combat. In order to add this to more races, you must add the custom keyword to the race you want to add it to. By default, this file modifies dwarven centurions and spheres, because they use swords. This file also modifies draugr behavior.
Compatibility
Use your best judgement. This is a somewhat expansive mod but since its mostly an SKSE plugin everything should technically 'work'.
Combat behavior mods such as distance based combat probably will not work well. This is really meant to be used with MCO/SkySa and nothing else.
Full Precision Support. Actually, precision is recommended as it changes up the hit times so moving around really matters and affects the time you should block
Animated Armory supported. You do not need to do any animation replacers since the battleaxe/warhammer animations have been replaced with animations that are appropriate for pikes/halberds/poleaxes as well. You can treat all new and existing weapons as polearms in this way.
I recommend you use true directional combat or some other mod with lock on for the true KCD experience.
This probably does not work with skyrim together so I wouldnt even try
Important: The upper body and lower body run separate animations in order for direction switching to look right while moving. That means you probably want to delete the *_walk and *_run animations if you are running an animation replacer, since it will try to blend the _idle animation with the walk animations.
Mechanics and Changes
Some of these changes are modifiable with the Settings.ini file. More settings will be added over time
This should theorectically work with all enemies that hold a weapon, but animations may not work. I've included a plugin that changes draugr to use human behavior files but killmoves are totally broken with them and they look all fucked up. You fight so much draugr and skeletons that I think it's worth it though.
Please use https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13395 or something to remove killmoves
Directional Block/Attack
Attack in a specific direction and block in a specific direction. There are 4 directions:
Top Right/Top Left/Bottom Left/Bottom Right
You must block in the same direction as the attack in order to succeed, and you must attack in a direction that is not being blocked in order for it to land.
If you successfully block an attack, the attacker has an attack lockout of 1500ms. This is to ensure that the blocker has initiative to perform an attack, leading to a back and forth battle.
There are 3 major input methods for directions:
Parry Direction Commitment
If you successfully block an attack without changing direction, you will not take any damage. However, if you have to change directions, you will take additional stamina damage and take half of the damage to your health. This leads to an block commitment mechanic where feinting is really useful.
Each direction has full animation support for major weapon groups: 1 Handed Swords, 2 Handed Swords, Battleaxes (Thrusting Polearms) and Warhammers (Swinging Polearms). This consists of Idle/Blocking/Attack animations. 3 animations * 4 directions * 4 weapon types means 48 new animations. I am not an animator though so they are not that good.
I have included 48 (realisticish) animations with this mod. They n are based on HEMA (historical european martial arts) techniques. The included animations require MCO!
Masterstrike/Chambering
There is a masterstrike/chambering mechanic that allows you to defend and counterattack simultaneously. If you attack within 200ms (configurable) of another attack hitting you, you will automatically block and land an attack at the same time, while heavily staggering your opponent. This can happen to you too.
Combos/Unblockable Attacks
If you successfully land two attacks (not blocked) on different directions of a target within a certain time limit, your third attack will become an unblockable attack. Your indicator will become orange and your next attack will be unblockable, as well as dealing significantly increased damage. There is no way to defend against an unblockable attack besides not letting them combo you.
AI Support
Most mechanics will apply to the AI as well.
The AI will try to block in the same direction as your attack. Sometimes they are very, very good at this. Balance is a continuous tuning thing.
There are multiple difficulty levels. This is dependent on your current level and the enemies current level. Enemies that are significantly higher level than you can become ridiculously difficult to fight, constantly changing directions while attacking at your open directions, while enemies lower level should be much easier.
The AI gets easier or harder depending on how many attacks it lands or how many you land. Attacking in a predictable manner makes the AI harder, but attacking from a lot of different directions causes it to get easier.
AI will try to attack in specific patterns, but be careful. Sometimes they attack outside this pattern to keep you on your toes.
You can condition the AI to guard specific directions. This lets you open them up to attacks from other directions.
Stamina System
Attacks cost 10 percent of your current stamina, with an additional cost based on your weapon weight. Additionally, continuously attacking on the same direction will double the cost of stamina, as well as slightly reduces attack speed and damage. You are severely punished for spamming attacks.
Blocking does purely stamina damage now, unless you do not have enough stamina to block the attack. Attacks that you try to block while being out of stamina will heavily stagger you. The stamina damage dealt to block is multiplied by the weight of your blocking weapon versus the weight of their blocking weapon.
As a result, stamina regen is heavily increased. It is increased by a percentage of your base stamina as well so you are not punished by having more stamina for attacking.
The AttacksCostStamina setting disables this entire system.
Stagger System
This mod has its own stagger system implemented. Attacks cause stagger, with a default timeout of 1500ms. This is needed to prevent hit trading.
Damage Changes
This mod comes with customizable modifiers for melee weapon damage and ranged damage. By default, melee weapon damage is cranked up while ranged damage is severely decreased. You shouldn't be using ranged with this mod anyway.
Weapon Rebalance
This is a thing you can disable which basically goes through and normalizes the attack speeds of all weapons, decreasing or increasing their damage based on if the weapon speed was altered. This is needed because weapon attack speeds REALLY affect the mod, so you don't want things that are too fast or slow. Not customizeable at the moment.
There is also a weapon speed multiplier which is a general thing. Slow it down if the mod is too high pace.
Movement Speed
I've altered the movement speed to slow down movement during combat. Otherwise you can just step out of attacks instead of blocking. Also ranged has significantly lowered movement speed because fuck ranged
Directional Power Attacks Removed
Sorry. Couldn't make it work well with the AI and there are too many animations to make.
1vX Mechanics
After you block an attack, you get 1000ms where attackers will be staggered when they attack you, which should help with 1vX scenarios.
Interface
You can't customize it right now. Sorry
This is what the Guard indicator looks like. Yellow is neutral
Blue means blocking
Red means attacking
Fully orange means the next attack is unblockable.
This means you cannot attack. If your attack is blocked, you and NPCs will have an attack lockout where they cannot attack and only defend.
DAR Animation Support
DAR is required for animation support. This means that animations will not work on AE until DAR gets updated.
The directions are applied as a spell. Place animations into these folders in order to change the animation for a given direction.
Known Issues
AI looks like it's in the attacking state but no attack animation comes out. This is due to power attack funkiness.
It used to inconsistently crash when reloading after death, but pretty sure I fixed it. send crashlogger logs if you think you find something
There's probably more. This was supposed to take like a week but ended up taking way more time cause of all the animations
Future Plans
Revamping the UI so it is more customizable
More AI balancing
1vX mechanics
Bash might get turned into an option to open up opponents. something like if you bash at the same angle as your opponent, you get to stagger them as well as change their direction to something else to give you an opening
I dunno. Honestly this was supposed to be a quick side thing then became not so quick so need to think about it.
Credits
Ersh for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/ersh1
D7ry for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/D7ry
Maxsu for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/max-su-2019
Monitor and Distar for helping me out with behavior stuff
Qudix for this https://github.com/Qudix/template-commonlibsse-ng
Nickanak and animated armor for some of the polearm bash animations I included
FAQ
My animations look weird when I walk
The bone weights in the behavior files expects the vanilla walk/run animations. If your walk/run animation replacers have angled hip rotations, it may cause the upper body to face in a different direction. If its a big problem let me know
The mod is way too hard
Change the AIDifficultyMult in the Settings.ini file if you want to make the AI easier. There are lots of other knobs in the Settings.ini file to change the difficulty as well.
X Feature does not work
Let me know which one.
I don't like the animations that come with the mod
Thats rough. You can replace them with DAR.
It doesn't work on AE!
That's because the mod requires DAR. Once DAR works on AE (unknown when), it will work.
Can I use something besides MCO?
Yes, although the annotations may make the comboing difficult. It relies on the annotation `MCO_WinOpen` for comboing attacks from different directions. It will work without it, but you will have to wait for the entire attack animation to end before switching directions.
Will you make a 1st person version?
That is 48 more animations and reconstruction of a more complicated 1st person behavior animation graph.
Help! My custom animations don't combo right
So here's how it works: Each direction is considered a perk for the purposes of DAR. That means when you add MCO annotations, you need to add the transition to an attack that also exists in another direction.
For example, if you Direction1 has attack1 and attack2, but direction2 only has attack1, you cannot transition to attack2 if you are switching directions away from attack1. I would make sure that each attack animation chain can safely chain to each direction.
There's a reason why I only have attack1 for each direction.
Can you change the number of directions?
No, there's a lot of code that assumes 4 directions and I don't think less directions is enough for gameplay depth.
Source
https://github.com/machinegod420/SkyrimDirectionalCombat
Warnings
This makes 1vX fights VERY hard. Use a mod that allows you to 1v1 enemies, such as Wait Your Turn or bring lots of followers to soak hits. There is some 1vX mechanics that should help though.
This is not meant to be used with a dodge mod. You can, but it defeats the point of the mod.
I haven't profiled the performance impact yet.
Want something more realistic (but not that realistic) than the usual action RPG mechanics? Tired of jumping and rolling around instead of clashing swords? Want some more depth to your melee combat? Then this mod is for you!
This is a directional combat mod, inspired by multiple swordfighting games such as Kingdom Come Deliverance and Mordhau but is not an exact copy of any one of them, just takes mechanics from them. Is intended to add new mechanics and depth to the relatively meh combat system in Skryim right now.
At the moment there is only 3rd person animations.
How To Install
There are a bunch of requirements so make sure you get those.
Think you can just install through mod manager and run nemesis. It's mostly an SKSE plugin. I wouldn't worry too much about uninstalling either.
DirectionModRaces.esp - This file is an optional file that allows support for non-weapon carrying creatures and NPCs to participate in directional combat. In order to add this to more races, you must add the custom keyword to the race you want to add it to. By default, this file modifies dwarven centurions and spheres, because they use swords. This file also modifies draugr behavior.
Compatibility
Use your best judgement. This is a somewhat expansive mod but since its mostly an SKSE plugin everything should technically 'work'.
Combat behavior mods such as distance based combat probably will not work well. This is really meant to be used with MCO/SkySa and nothing else.
Full Precision Support. Actually, precision is recommended as it changes up the hit times so moving around really matters and affects the time you should block
Animated Armory supported. You do not need to do any animation replacers since the battleaxe/warhammer animations have been replaced with animations that are appropriate for pikes/halberds/poleaxes as well. You can treat all new and existing weapons as polearms in this way.
I recommend you use true directional combat or some other mod with lock on for the true KCD experience.
This probably does not work with skyrim together so I wouldnt even try
Important: The upper body and lower body run separate animations in order for direction switching to look right while moving. That means you probably want to delete the *_walk and *_run animations if you are running an animation replacer, since it will try to blend the _idle animation with the walk animations.
Mechanics and Changes
Some of these changes are modifiable with the Settings.ini file. More settings will be added over time
This should theorectically work with all enemies that hold a weapon, but animations may not work. I've included a plugin that changes draugr to use human behavior files but killmoves are totally broken with them and they look all fucked up. You fight so much draugr and skeletons that I think it's worth it though.
Please use https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/13395 or something to remove killmoves
Directional Block/Attack
Attack in a specific direction and block in a specific direction. There are 4 directions:
Top Right/Top Left/Bottom Left/Bottom Right
You must block in the same direction as the attack in order to succeed, and you must attack in a direction that is not being blocked in order for it to land.
If you successfully block an attack, the attacker has an attack lockout of 1500ms. This is to ensure that the blocker has initiative to perform an attack, leading to a back and forth battle.
There are 3 major input methods for directions:
- Mouse only. I highly recommend a lock on mod if you are doing this way, since looking in different directions can cause you to change directions when you don't want to.
- Mouse with a keyboard modifier. Use a modifier key you have to hold down to change directions with a mouse
- Keyboard press
Parry Direction Commitment
If you successfully block an attack without changing direction, you will not take any damage. However, if you have to change directions, you will take additional stamina damage and take half of the damage to your health. This leads to an block commitment mechanic where feinting is really useful.
Each direction has full animation support for major weapon groups: 1 Handed Swords, 2 Handed Swords, Battleaxes (Thrusting Polearms) and Warhammers (Swinging Polearms). This consists of Idle/Blocking/Attack animations. 3 animations * 4 directions * 4 weapon types means 48 new animations. I am not an animator though so they are not that good.
I have included 48 (realisticish) animations with this mod. They n are based on HEMA (historical european martial arts) techniques. The included animations require MCO!
Masterstrike/Chambering
There is a masterstrike/chambering mechanic that allows you to defend and counterattack simultaneously. If you attack within 200ms (configurable) of another attack hitting you, you will automatically block and land an attack at the same time, while heavily staggering your opponent. This can happen to you too.
Combos/Unblockable Attacks
If you successfully land two attacks (not blocked) on different directions of a target within a certain time limit, your third attack will become an unblockable attack. Your indicator will become orange and your next attack will be unblockable, as well as dealing significantly increased damage. There is no way to defend against an unblockable attack besides not letting them combo you.
AI Support
Most mechanics will apply to the AI as well.
The AI will try to block in the same direction as your attack. Sometimes they are very, very good at this. Balance is a continuous tuning thing.
There are multiple difficulty levels. This is dependent on your current level and the enemies current level. Enemies that are significantly higher level than you can become ridiculously difficult to fight, constantly changing directions while attacking at your open directions, while enemies lower level should be much easier.
The AI gets easier or harder depending on how many attacks it lands or how many you land. Attacking in a predictable manner makes the AI harder, but attacking from a lot of different directions causes it to get easier.
AI will try to attack in specific patterns, but be careful. Sometimes they attack outside this pattern to keep you on your toes.
You can condition the AI to guard specific directions. This lets you open them up to attacks from other directions.
Stamina System
Attacks cost 10 percent of your current stamina, with an additional cost based on your weapon weight. Additionally, continuously attacking on the same direction will double the cost of stamina, as well as slightly reduces attack speed and damage. You are severely punished for spamming attacks.
Blocking does purely stamina damage now, unless you do not have enough stamina to block the attack. Attacks that you try to block while being out of stamina will heavily stagger you. The stamina damage dealt to block is multiplied by the weight of your blocking weapon versus the weight of their blocking weapon.
As a result, stamina regen is heavily increased. It is increased by a percentage of your base stamina as well so you are not punished by having more stamina for attacking.
The AttacksCostStamina setting disables this entire system.
Stagger System
This mod has its own stagger system implemented. Attacks cause stagger, with a default timeout of 1500ms. This is needed to prevent hit trading.
Damage Changes
This mod comes with customizable modifiers for melee weapon damage and ranged damage. By default, melee weapon damage is cranked up while ranged damage is severely decreased. You shouldn't be using ranged with this mod anyway.
Weapon Rebalance
This is a thing you can disable which basically goes through and normalizes the attack speeds of all weapons, decreasing or increasing their damage based on if the weapon speed was altered. This is needed because weapon attack speeds REALLY affect the mod, so you don't want things that are too fast or slow. Not customizeable at the moment.
There is also a weapon speed multiplier which is a general thing. Slow it down if the mod is too high pace.
Movement Speed
I've altered the movement speed to slow down movement during combat. Otherwise you can just step out of attacks instead of blocking. Also ranged has significantly lowered movement speed because fuck ranged
Directional Power Attacks Removed
Sorry. Couldn't make it work well with the AI and there are too many animations to make.
1vX Mechanics
After you block an attack, you get 1000ms where attackers will be staggered when they attack you, which should help with 1vX scenarios.
Interface
You can't customize it right now. Sorry
This is what the Guard indicator looks like. Yellow is neutral
Blue means blocking
Red means attacking
Fully orange means the next attack is unblockable.
This means you cannot attack. If your attack is blocked, you and NPCs will have an attack lockout where they cannot attack and only defend.
DAR Animation Support
DAR is required for animation support. This means that animations will not work on AE until DAR gets updated.
The directions are applied as a spell. Place animations into these folders in order to change the animation for a given direction.
Known Issues
AI looks like it's in the attacking state but no attack animation comes out. This is due to power attack funkiness.
It used to inconsistently crash when reloading after death, but pretty sure I fixed it. send crashlogger logs if you think you find something
There's probably more. This was supposed to take like a week but ended up taking way more time cause of all the animations
Future Plans
Revamping the UI so it is more customizable
More AI balancing
1vX mechanics
Bash might get turned into an option to open up opponents. something like if you bash at the same angle as your opponent, you get to stagger them as well as change their direction to something else to give you an opening
I dunno. Honestly this was supposed to be a quick side thing then became not so quick so need to think about it.
Credits
Ersh for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/ersh1
D7ry for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/D7ry
Maxsu for having code on Github for me to look at https://github.com/max-su-2019
Monitor and Distar for helping me out with behavior stuff
Qudix for this https://github.com/Qudix/template-commonlibsse-ng
Nickanak and animated armor for some of the polearm bash animations I included
FAQ
My animations look weird when I walk
The bone weights in the behavior files expects the vanilla walk/run animations. If your walk/run animation replacers have angled hip rotations, it may cause the upper body to face in a different direction. If its a big problem let me know
The mod is way too hard
Change the AIDifficultyMult in the Settings.ini file if you want to make the AI easier. There are lots of other knobs in the Settings.ini file to change the difficulty as well.
X Feature does not work
Let me know which one.
I don't like the animations that come with the mod
Thats rough. You can replace them with DAR.
It doesn't work on AE!
That's because the mod requires DAR. Once DAR works on AE (unknown when), it will work.
Can I use something besides MCO?
Yes, although the annotations may make the comboing difficult. It relies on the annotation `MCO_WinOpen` for comboing attacks from different directions. It will work without it, but you will have to wait for the entire attack animation to end before switching directions.
Will you make a 1st person version?
That is 48 more animations and reconstruction of a more complicated 1st person behavior animation graph.
Help! My custom animations don't combo right
So here's how it works: Each direction is considered a perk for the purposes of DAR. That means when you add MCO annotations, you need to add the transition to an attack that also exists in another direction.
For example, if you Direction1 has attack1 and attack2, but direction2 only has attack1, you cannot transition to attack2 if you are switching directions away from attack1. I would make sure that each attack animation chain can safely chain to each direction.
There's a reason why I only have attack1 for each direction.
Can you change the number of directions?
No, there's a lot of code that assumes 4 directions and I don't think less directions is enough for gameplay depth.
Source
https://github.com/machinegod420/SkyrimDirectionalCombat