LE All New Combatsystem - Revolution!

[RightNow0815]

Dear Community.

I love Skyrim - and one of the most important reasons why I love this epic game is the unbelievable community for modifications.

I've already spend nearly 700h in Skyrim with various mods activated.

 

Skyrim's scale is simply huge. The characters are plentiful and very individually designed. The amount of quests and their quality is super and clearly above average compared to other RPGs.

IMHO Skyrim's only fault is the combat system. I'm sure many of you know games like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (2006), Chivalry Medieval Warfare (2012) or The Witcher 2 (2011).

My dream is to give Skyrim a more challenging, unforgiving and more individual combat system. Many good existing combat-relating mods alter the combat in Skyrim in a great way. But they only modify the mediocre basic combat of Skyrim.

 

This is my plan: Let's give our beloved Skyrim the only thing it needs - an All New Combatsystem, which revolutionizes the combat completely.

My main goal is to change the melee weapons. Maybe after that we can think about some little changes to ranged weapons. My intension is not to change anything related with magic and spells.

 

 

I will go deeper into the details of my current plan now. My main ideas are derivated vom Chivalry - Medieval Warfare.

 

I. There will be three main attack types.

1. Swing: Average Damage, can be buffed when moving the mouse in the swing direction while attacking. Very useful to bypass a shield block on the flanks of a warrior. A fast way to attack.
2. Stab: You throw your weapon arm forwards and attack with the tip of your weapon. Main attack type when using Spears, Halberds. Useful with Swords, too. Not efficient when using a mace or an axe - but still wounds the enemy a bit and also pushs the enemy backwards. It does most damage when the enemy gets hit when your arrack reached maximum range. Veterans can hit the head or the feet not covered by a shield block - assumed one aims well.
3. Overhead: The warrior takes his weapon over his head, using the advantage of gravity and efficient use of the body's force. It can surpass a shield block when an enemy is stunned. This attack type usually does high damage because it hits vital parts of the enemie's body. Because the weapon itself has a longer distance to travel, this is a heavy, slow way to attack.

 

II. Two types of blocking

1. Block with weapons: You have to exactly recognize when the enemy starts an attack. Then you hit the block button one time and your warrior will lift up his weapon to block the enemy's attack. The block duration is about 0,5 seconds. This prevents spamming the block-button and beeing almost invincible. You can't stop a block. There's a short "penalty" time between one block and another, leaving without cover.
2. Block with shields: You can permanently block with your shield, unlike explained in 2a). This underlines the defensive attribute of a shield bearer. This seems to be overpowered at first look. But the shield has 2 disadvantages. Firstly it slows you down pretty much - such a wooden or even metal-made shield weighs a lot. And secondly it needs a top conditioned player to use it well. A character without solid stamina reserve will be soonly overwhelmed with hits on his shield, soonly breaking down his block and leaving him without any defense. Carrying a shield with you also means, that you are restricted to smaller, one handed weapons - obviously.

 

III. Advanced combat mechanisms

1. Feinting: Feinting is a great way to fight unpredictable and fight against heavy armoured and well armed defensive enemies. There's a threshold in every attack to which you can end your attack. This could be done by hitting a certain button or simply by hitting the right-mouse-button (Block...?) after starting the attack. Feinting works well against weapon-blocks, because their block time is limitied and a fail block is going to leave the enemy without cover for a short timeframe. It can also work against enemies with a shield - but still isnt that effective because your feint does not eventually lead to a small moment without cover.
2. Alternative Attacking: Hitting Alt+(any) attack button will alter the attack in most cases. A swing from the right to the left will be a Swing from left to the right - useful against defensive Enemies with shields or to trick with an apparently predictable movement. Alt+Stab has no effect.
3. Kicking: The function of a well placed kick is to break an enemies block, to buy some time or push the enemy away on some range. It does minor damage - enough to finish an almost dead enemy - but not enough to be comparable with weapon damage. Kicking needs a solid load of stamina. An additional possibility could be to "charge" the block to be more efficent at the cost of more time needed to get into the right position.

 

IV. Stamina Management

1. Attack that doesn't hit anything costs the full stamina reduction of the Attack. This is the value I will relate to as "basic attack cost"
2. Attack that hits (either a block or the body) only has 50% stamina cost of the basic attack.
3. Blocking with a weapon: When nothing hits you, it doesnt cost any stamina. When you parry an attack, it takes away 75% of the attack's basic stamina cost.
4. Blocking with a shield: One does not regenerate stamina while blocking. When you parry an attack with your shield, it takes away 75% of the attack's basic stamina cost.
5. When your stamina reserves are empty, this brings some problems on: You can't kick. You still can attack. You also can block, but when you parry an attack, it throws you back, staggering. This leaves you exposed to any hits for a moment.

 

 

This is how my first idea looks like.

I will have much spare time between february and april and this project could be my baby.

My skills are almost not existing when it comes to modding and modding experiences.

 

So I hope to convince some of you great guys out there to support me and my idea, to show me some approaches and to work together on this project.

I am open minded for constructive criticism and new ideas!

Feel free to reply and tell me your opinion and wether you are interested in my project.

 

With best Regards, Bobby.

Edited January 11, 2014 by RightNow0815

[notmyhome]

Nice idea, but I´m afraid if you leave magic system completely untouched this will probably be unbalanced. Not necessarily unrealistic, just unbalanced.

[RightNow0815]

Hey there.

I do not want to make any weapons better or weaker. Just the way melee combat is fought. Therefore I do not think that magic is - compared to melee- buffed or nerfed.

 

It would be great if you could tell me precisely why magic will be unbalanced. This could help me alot.

Thanks for your post.

[notmyhome]

Especially Stagger effects often break "pure" combat mods, as far as my experience goes. As well as slow effects, draining spells and this sort.
Again, this is not necessarily unrealistic, seeing as how Magic as portrayed in skyrim probably would be far superior to mundane warfare in reality.

[RightNow0815]

Thats a good point. I thought I could replace the stagger-possibility of Vanilla-Skyrim (depends on the weight of the weapon, the heavier a weapon the more it tends to stagger the enemy) with my idea of staggering. A more logical and reliable one. I think stagger effects are still important in sword combat.

 

The problem I see now is, that Magic will be stronger because the melee fights are probably going to need more combat time to be finished.

But I think that the NPC-Combat-intelligence is not high enough to make a good use of this advantage. Not as far as I can judge this - I've played on Expert or Master the most time.

And I also think that Vanilla-Skyrim is way to easy in many situations - IMHO that would be a good effect, it wil llead that the player has to think how to REALLY fight. No spamming of the attack buttons anymore.

 

Thank you for your time and your thoughts.
You're welcome ;-)

[RightNow0815]

I think the topic can be closed, because it seems that I'm the only one who wants to enhance combat this way.

Thanks anyway, keep it up guys.

[acidzebra]

Some of the things you suggest in your initial post are certainly possible, others would require that someone virtually rewrite the game engine which is unlikely to happen.

 

You may be happy with a mod like this one to make combat bloody hard:

http://tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/1567-duke-patricks-archery-and-heavy-weapons-combat/

and this one to alter the NPC combat AI

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/18436/?

 

note: both are complex mods so be sure to read any READMEs and follow instructions.