Duel Casting? Is it possible?

[Kolagon]

How difficult would it be if someone tried to recreate Skyrim's spell casting system for Oblivion where you could cast spells with right, left, or both hands, I do recall seeing the animations of casting spell with left or right hand depending if you equiped a sword or not.

Edited September 23, 2016 by Kolagon

[Glitchipedia]

Now, of course, I don't know how one would go about this, but if it were possible to dual-wield the staves from the Conduit Magic mod (which draw from the player's magicka pool instead of using charges), we might be onto something.

[Kolagon]

It'd be awesome to have skyrim's duel casting in Oblivion, I know it'd be tricky to do but the animations are there, someone just needs to figure out a script and probably equipment slots, maybe enchanted shield/weapon slots to play the animations according to current spell equiped/selected? *rubs forehead* then again that would probably allow you to cast the spell at a faster rate since you could play both hand throwing animations and.... Blarg.. I don't know scripting, i'm just theorizing a what-if and giving ideas

[forli]

Sorry to crush your dreams: it would more than tricky, maybe nearly impossible.

 

Why? Let me explain:

Scripts have no power here, and probably even OBSE plugins can't do much.

The reason is the huge difference between Oblivion and Skyrim:

• In Skyrim the left and right hand are two distinct and equivalent slots to place any equipment of type weapon, spell or shield (shield only on left hand). Spells use hand slots like weapons and shield, so you can't equip three of them at the same time, but you can create any kind of combo (except equipping shield on right hand). Everything has been designed to work with dual items.
• In Oblivion there's no left/right hand concept and no double slot for weapons/spells. The weapon is an object with its own slot, the shield is another object with its own slot and the spell is an object which doesn't even use an equipment slot, so you can have all three (weapon+shield+spell) at the same time. Everything has been designed so weapon always equip on right hand, shield always equip on left hand, while spells have no slot and no hand, but just use a different animation basing on the situation.
  The system is rigid, inflexible and unbreakable.

 

The closest feature to dual weapon has been added by Oblivion Reloaded, but it's not a real dual weapon: OR just convert the weapon to a shield in order to equip it on the left hand; in other words it still follow the engine rules: "weapon on right, shield on left". You can't even use the enchantment or the poison from the left weapo...<cough> shield, because... it's a shield! Shield have no charge, no "hit" enchantment and no poison. When you attack, it play the left attack animation, but you actually hit with the right weapon (the right weapon cause the damage, gets damaged and apply its enchantments/poisons, etc...).

Alenet decided to just "deceive" the game (by converting the weapon to shield) instead of changing the mechanics and allow direct equip/usage of weapons on left hand, because a similar change would require a complete rewrite of the equipment system (something only Bethesda, with the Oblivion's source code, could do, and would still require them much time to implement).

 

About spells, there's no dual cast animation like you say. You can't use the animations from Skyrim, as they are not compatible with the Oblivion's engine, and even with a dual cast animation it still wouldn't work in Oblivion, due to the different way the Oblivion's animations works.

 

Also, they use no slot and this is another huge problem!

• Adding new equipment slots in Oblivion is nearly impossible (same reason as left weapons: you would need to break the game apart and rebuild the whole equipment system and all its commands. This of course would also break all the thousands scripts, both from vanilla or from other mods, written with the old system).
• Allow spells to use slots. This alone would be a huge problem. It's another "rebuild the game from scratch" problem.

Ok, so we can totally throw away the possibility of a "native" dual wield/cast system.

 

 

 

About fake systems:

• OR's dual wield is the best one so far, but it's still far from a perfect dual wield, because I repeat: the left weapon is converted to a shield and so the game consider it as a pure shield: no hit enchantment, no poison, ... actually, no hit at all, since all hits are actually still made by the right weapon...
• UVIII's dual wield was the previous best one, but uses a risky approach, with the same results as OR's system (a weapon converted to shield) but much less stability and many more bugs.
• No fake dual cast exists.
• Staves dual cast with Conduit Magic: in Oblivion staves are two handed weapons, and it would be difficult to change this (yes, another "hardcoded" mechanic). Even so, even if OR could dual-wield the staves and you use Conduit Magic... you still have no access to the left staff's (or should I say... staff/shield's) enchantment.

Edited October 11, 2016 by forli

[Glitchipedia]

UVIII has the built-in capability to change weapon grips—a one-handed weapon can be wielded as though it were two-handed, and a two-handed weapon can be wielded in one hand, if the character is strong enough. In the latter case, it is even possible to dual-wield two-handed weapons. I have no idea, however, if this works with staves or if the Conduit Magic scripts would be able to take advantage of this.

 

Still, the fact that these principles are possible to accomplish separately is a start. If these specific traits of UVIII and Conduit Magic could somehow be combined, a rudimentary dual-casting system might be possible. Yes, it would probably be buggy, but I'd judge it better than nothing.

[forli]

Blades and blunts have can be either 1H and 2H, so UV can easily switch between the two grips.

Instead, there's no 1H mode for Staves and Bows, which can only be 2H, so UV can't switch them.

 

If you ever manage to turn a Staff to 1H, you don't even even Conduit Magic, as you could simply equip 2 staves (in left and right hand).

Still, whatever idea you have with staves or other items, you forgot one simple limitation: you can't cast while doing another action at the same time!

• if you're casting, you can't attack nor block
• if you're attacking, you can't cast
• if you're blocking, you can cast, but the block is cancelled
• if you press Attack/Block and Cast at the same time, only one of these actions will be executed

[didiusdeddysalam]

set up two X marker heading and then click on them and set the target to target references (NPC and the like)

and make a two packages for two NPCs that will you use to get to do the casting practice...

set the target of each packages to the two opposing NPCs references....and viola the two NPC magic combat begin !

check it out here in my mod : http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/46746/? (Canum & the other NPC doing it)

[forli]

set up two X marker heading and then click on them and set the target to target references (NPC and the like)

and make a two packages for two NPCs that will you use to get to do the casting practice...

set the target of each packages to the two opposing NPCs references....and viola the two NPC magic combat begin !

check it out here in my mod : http://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/46746/? (Canum & the other NPC doing it)

This is completely off topic. The request is for a single actor (mainly the player, possibly NPC as well) to be able to use both his hands to cast 2 spells at the same time.

[Kolagon]

When I said the animations are there in the Oblivion game: If you cast a spell with your fists down, you throw from left hand, but if you equip a shield or put up fists, you throw and cast from right hand while the "Touch animation" thrusts both hands out, which could be kind of a stronger spell with both right and left mouse buttons and press. but I understand if this thing is impossible or way to complicated, I just thought it'd be possibly by modifying the left and right button presses to use a different animation, you just can't use shield/weapon as a few others have pointed out.

 

 

EDIT: I think I know a way it can work.. Basically make the left and right buttons play different hand casting animations, and if both buttons are pressed, you cast a slightly stronger version of the spell and play the Touch animation, perhaps not two different spells due to you can only select spell at a time, you can't punch/use swords/shields when using the duel casting.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Kolagon

[forli]

Don't get me wrong:

I would like a dual cast system, and I would start working on it immediately, but I know too well the Oblivion's script engine, its commands and its limitations, and so I know this can't be done easily.

 

One "bad" solution already exists, but I trash it immediately exactly because its bad: use an activator to cast the second spell.

It would be bad, as the activator would rely on the Cast command, which doesn't allow you to specify a location, but only a "target" ref. This means:

- The activator can't cast freely without a target (so you need to find a way to get the player's target, and... sometimes there's none!)

- It can't cast the spell in the direction you're facing with the crosshair, as it wants a target, not a x/y/z point

- While your touch/target spells can't harm you, the activator touch/target spell could, because they're not yours.

These and more limitations classify this solution as bad IMHO.

 

An OBSE plugin (dll) is needed to "break some chains" here and there, in order for CS scripts to have enough "powers" to implement a "good" solution.

 

 

Play different hand casting animations: this is one of the main problems. In Oblivion you either play an animation or another one. not both at the same time.

Only animation groups can be used together, but only if they don't touch the same parts of the body. Every cast animation use the whole upper body (torso and both arms), so if you ask to play both animation, one animation will take the whole upper body, leaving nothing to animate to the other animation.

 

About a combined cast... that would be possible maybe...

I mean: individual casts are very difficult, but simulate a combined cast by using the touch cast animation and increasing the magnitude/duration of the effects in the spell would be possible maybe.

Miguick already did a great work in his mod Magic Magnitude Multiplier and adding this feature would be much faster if integrated in his mod... <sound of brain gears in action...>

Edited October 14, 2016 by forli