LE Demon's Souls Style Combat

[Lancen833]

Hey all,

I've done a quick search of this forum for suggestions involving modifying the combat system in Skyrim to be closer to that of Demon's Souls / Dark Souls, and I haven't really seen anything to that extent.

 

Apologies, this is going to be a huge wall of text, hope you are ready for a read-and-a-half.

 

What I really think would push the combat system of Skyrim over the edge is having it be very similar to the precision of Demon's Souls with the fluidity of Skyrim. Both games have a very similar feel to them, in terms of how melee combat is handled, but there are a few basic differences that render Skyrim a little bit lacking in tactical fighting. Unless you are trying to score a massive backstab, there is almost no strategy involved in fighting an enemy close up. Even on Master (HAH!) difficulty, combat consists of clicking as fast as you can to hit your opponent as many times as possible with your enchanted weapons. Power attacks are cool, but just like in Oblivion, they lack any real necessity and more often than not, just waste time and damage that you otherwise could have been doing. Sure, that's fun, but it really isn't a satisfying experience after the 1000th bandit you cut down in the exact same way. One feels like a blender, just chopping and slicing and chugging potions until everything around you is dead.

 

Demon's souls on the other hand, had a very satisfying combat system, where every enemy was a legitimate threat to the character unless you were on top of your game or too powerful for the current playthrough. Playing a mage was incredibly dangerous if anything happened to surprise you and get within your "safe zone." Even the ankle-biters could, and would, wreck your face if you let them start comboing on you. The skill cap was also orders of magnitude higher than in Skyrim, if you decided to play a technical class like the parry-riposte backstabber. You needed to predict the attacks of the enemy within a split second, and counter attack accordingly, otherwise you opened yourself up to massive punishment without a chance of responding. Combat was always refreshing, fun, and even downright frustrating at times. (Which is very satisfying, if the frustration is at yourself for not being good enough, rather than at the system being poorly designed.) Every kill felt like a mini-accomplishment, and the hardest enemies would kick your ass over and over again, making beating them one of the greatest feelings of victory it was possible to get from a video game.

 

If you hate how easy or simple it is to succeed in Skyrim, and indeed most other games, you know you would absolutely love to see a more complex and rewarding combat system from what is sure to be a game that we will come back to time and time again.

 

To that point, here are the things that I would love to see implemented in Skyrim by our very talented modding community, given that I have almost no knowledge of how to do it myself. (Although, if no one gives this a shot, I just might have to learn!)

 

----COMBAT CHANGES----

 

- Parrying with a small shield or parrying weapon in the off-hand.

 

Shield and weapon sizes would be limited to make this style of combat an actual decision, with real risks associated with its real rewards.

No shields large than a heater shield or buckler size, to prevent actually having defenses against ranged enemies. If one decides to go with a parrying weapon, attacks made with it should not be effective at all, and it should offer little defensive bonus aside from its ability to parry easily. If it is possible, parrying should be made to be harder to do, the better defense your parrying equipment protects you from other attacks. Good combat is about all the decisions we make, not just having the best stats.

 

It should not be possible to parry all attacks, (unless we make a high-level perk for that end, and even then, some should not be parry-able) such as power attacks made with a large enough weapon. I don't care how good you are at turning a dagger, you aren't going to be able to parry some mountain man swinging a warhammer with all his might. This provides incentive to use the slower, less versatile power attacks, and keeps combat a highly involved process.

 

Upon a successful parry, the enemy would stagger back for a (very) brief period, leaving an opening in their defenses for a...

 

- Riposte and/or Backstab Attacks.

 

Why do critical hits only happen at the end of fights, and why is it only possible to backstab someone if they have no-idea that you are there/while sneaking?

Your main-hand weapon should do at least 3x bonus damage on a successful riposte and similar damage if you manage to backstab someone who is actively aware of your presence. It is VERY hard to do this in Skyrim, as most enemies will always be facing you unless otherwise disabled. There should be a commensurate reward for this skillful action. These types of backstabs are not affected by the sneak skill, and do not give it experience. Instead, they are another part of your one-handed skill, and scale accordingly.

(I am uncertain about actual damage multipliers, perhaps they should be different for each weapon type, with daggers and piercing weapons receiving the most bonus damage, and other, stronger weapons receiving less. Ideally, it should not be possible to one-shot a difficult enemy with either attack on expert/master level, unless you are ludicrously overpowered already. Ankle-biters would, of course, be annihilated by such powerful techniques.)

3rd person slow-mo and invincibility like with currently existing crits and backstabs would be a necessity.

 

- Non Sneak-Based Rolling.

 

I don't get what's so sneaky about rolling around on the floor to gain some distance from enemies. Most of the time, I'm just doing it after I've backstabbed and been detected because I want to get some space between me and my opponents.

Make rolling context sensitive and remove it from the stealth tree entirely. If it is possible, whenever the player is engaged in combat (I'm pretty sure the game has a way to know this and prevent certain actions, regen, etc.) make the sprint key a roll key. Rolling is much more combat oriented than just turning your back to your enemy and running. You are fighting to gain any positional advantage you can, perhaps even sneak in a backstab if you are precise enough with your usage. (Read: skillz = killz) No Demon's Souls roll invulnerability though, that was just broken.

 

- Interrupting Attack/Casting.

 

No matter what class you try to play in Skyrim, it's always the same thing in combat. Unless someone paralyzes you, knocks you down, or hits a big stagger, you can just keep swinging away or casting spells. Every character feels like The Juggernaut, shrugging off sword blows and arrows to the knees on their unstoppable rampage. There is no penalty for slower, more powerful attacks, other than a decrease in overall DPS. Low risk, low reward.

Now, if we have attack interrupting, where getting hit in the middle of your swing basically prevents you from attacking and gives you a very short to moderately short stagger based off of the power of the incoming blow, then the trade-off becomes apparent. Being able to attack quickly means that you have less chance of being interrupted, but that means giving up devastating power attacks, which stagger for longer periods and can't be parried. So, every attack becomes a decision for the player. “Do I risk letting myself get interrupted to avoid being parried, or do I try to sneak in a few quick jabs to disable my opponent before they figure out what I'm doing?” Spacing becomes critical, knowing where your enemies are, and how many of them you'll have to deal with is half of the game. Trying to take on a room full of guys at once is very likely going to be suicide, just as it would be in a real combat situation. (i.e. not being The Juggernaut)

 

- Armor/Weapon Weight and Stamina Drain

 

I'm not entirely sure what the exact numbers should be on stamina drain from weapons or blocking, perhaps the ingame numbers are already perfect. That's just something that can be tweaked later. However, the weight of your armor should definitely have an effect on both your roll-distance, and your overall movespeed. Beyond that, it's clear that rolling in heavy armor ought to use up a fair deal more stamina than rolling in light armor, and that more than rolling in robes. With less protection, one should move quicker and have it require less endurance to do so. The same goes in reverse: it takes a ton of endurance to keep rolling with the punches in a suit of platemail.

 

This means that players who are interested in wearing heavy armor will need to either move slowly and not dodge a lot, or pour a ton of points that could have gone into health/magicka into upping their stamina. (The numbers may have to be tweaked to make Armor rating better per pound, but again, that's something to be worked out after everything else is in place.) EVERY SINGLE OPTION IS A TRADE OFF, NOTHING IS OBJECTIVELY BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE. Players will genuinely see their skill and stat choices affect the very feel of the character they are playing, making the game that much more immersive.

 

- Two-Handed Staggering.

 

Now, when I say staggering here, I don't mean the animation where the opponent is basically paralyzed and incapable of doing anything but standing around. For that, you are looking at a successful parry, or perhaps a high-level power attack from a 2 hander. Instead, I refer to attack and movement interruption, which was explained previously.

Following in the theme of risk/reward trade-offs, those who want to wield the two-handed beasts are giving themselves superior combat range and disabling capabilities, while opening themselves up to dangerous debilitation should an enemy make it through their sweeping offensive barrage. Attacks (especially power attacks) made with two-handed weapons have the longest interrupt/stagger animation in the game, meaning that if you combo an enemy well, you can take them from full to dead without worrying about retaliation. However, if you are surrounded, or surprised by an enemy's attacks, you also suffer from having the longest swing time in the game - effectively opening you up to the same interruptions and combos that you are counting on to crush your opposition. To effectively stunlock, timing is everything, and if you slip up, prepare to be punished. Hard.

 

- Magic Users

 

What's the one thing that mages excel at? Ranged combat superiority, while being paper thin glass cannons.

To this end, skill-shot based destruction spells (apprentice and expert spells specifically, incl. runes) need a power boost to compensate for the new goodies that the other types of combat are getting. Mages do big damage, but because they have to put points into magicka, they have less capabilities to survive punishment and less stamina to escape with. Due to their absolute dominance at the mid-long range, spellcasters also suffer particularly badly from the interruptions that can be caused by melee attackers. All of the powerful spells have a cast time, as is already in place, but that animation is cancelled by any damage being taken before the projectile is actually in flight. They will have to rely on staying out of combat range and NEVER, EVER missing. The cloaks and novice level stream spells are their only reliable way to do damage at close range, and even then, they won't be especially effective, not receiving any buffs.

 

(I'm not really sure about how to modify the other schools of magic to make them equally relevant. They might be ok as-is, but that will require some gameplay with the other modifications in place already to determine.)

 

- Archers

 

Nope, just fine the way they are. Archery is a really good skill already, and it doesn't need any changes to the way it works. Maybe if there was a way to have area-specific damage modification, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

Except, of course, the fact that a bow is USELESS in melee combat for the same reasons that casting is so hard. Maybe people will have a reason to actually USE the shove command.

 

- Dual wielding

 

The most aggressive playstyle should feel AGGRESSIVE.

Wear down your opponent's stamina with your quick attacks, get right in their face, and start chain interrupting them so that they can't even begin an attack animation. Increase the frequency of attacks while dual wielding, while slightly lowering the power of each one. You aren't going to be doing huge damage all at once, but it's going to be hard to escape from you once you've backed them into a corner. Turning tail and running opens the enemy up to devastating backstabs, so that's not much of an option either. However, there is a trade-off for this aggression: You are going into melee combat without any defenses and you have to be at the closest range of all combat types to be effective. Dual wielding also eliminates the opportunity to benefit from parry-riposte, and opens you up to your opponent, should they manage to get a parry off on you. Your only protection from the enemy is an all-out onslaught of attacks, throwing caution to the winds.

 

- Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock

 

Now, it should already be vaguely clear which classes will have advantages against other classes in fights, but I will go into what I think it will end up being if everything is balanced properly:

 

Sword and Parry-Board → Dual wielders → Two-Handers → Sword and Parry-board

 

Mage at Range → Two-Handed, Sword and Parry-Board, Dual Wielders, Archer

Mage at Close ← Dual wielders, Sword and Parry-Board, Two-Handed, Archer

 

Archer at Range → Mage, Dual Wielders, Sword and Parry-Board, Two-Handed

Archer at Close ← Mage, Two-Handed, Sword and Parry-Board, Dual wielders

 

(In order of effectiveness from left to right, arrows indicate advantage)

((This is also assuming that Two-Handers wear heavy armor versus the rangers and Dual wielders wear light, things get exciting when they don't!))

Note that the Ol' Sword and board is still the most balanced way to fight. That is working as intended.

 

 

----GAMEPLAY CHANGES----

 

-Combat AI.

 

Well, it isn't quite fair if the player gets all of these awesome new abilities, and the NPCs are left high and dry. Nope, humanoids are going to get the same abilities that the player has, just as was intended in the original game. Wildlife and non-humanoid horrors are just going to have to get a power-up to compensate. (Dwarven stuff will be TERRIFYING!)

 

-Difficulty Level

 

I know that it already sounds pretty insane, but the standard game difficulty levels are not at all acceptable. Master shouldn't be the default 'kinda hard' difficulty. It should be RIDICULOUS HARD. Thus the new levels are as follows:

…..................Damage Dealt......Damage Taken

Novice....................1.5x....................0.75x......

Apprentice...............1x.........................1x........

Adept.....................0.75x...................1.5x........

Expert....................0.60x......................2x........

Master....................0.45x......................3x........

 

Honestly, I would suggest playing on Apprentice if this mod gets made, at least until you have the hang of it.

 

- Death Penalty

 

I have no idea whether or not this will be possible to do, given the nature of death in TES games.

Instead of bringing a player back to the save menu upon death, I would rather he/she be teleported to the beginning of the current cell and resurrected with skills intact. However, the player will have a scripted “blessing” added to their active buffs that calculates how much health they normally have and mods their health value to half of that amount. This blessing can be removed by either visiting a shrine or by beating whatever the final enemy of the dungeon is and consuming the Life Stone that they drop. If a player wears the Bolster Ring, their life is instead modified to 75% of normal until they recover fully. (Demon's Souls was not a forgiving game. Skyrim could be that too.) All enemies in the current cell are also resurrected in their normal spots. This is basically a reset of the active dungeon, with the mixed blessing of keeping your xp, but the need to beat it all in one go.

 

- Multiplayer

 

I've seen a few mods floating around out there that are getting close to making this a real thing. If they have done it by the time this mod gets made, oh you better believe it's going to be the best multiplayer combat mod on the nexus. Why would anyone want to PvP or PvE without a combat system that is this cool?

 

- General Skills and Perks Reworking.

 

Some perks and skills won't make very much sense with the new combat system. Again, this is going to require some testing and a lot of thinking before reasonable alternatives can be developed, but it should make for the best quality game in the long run.

 

 

So, what do you guys think? Sound like it might make for a fun mod? Anything you think isn't possible to achieve? Feedback, insight, questions, interested modders - all are welcome to comment. This might have to be a team effort, but one that's well worth it in my opinion.

Thanks for reading,

Lancen.

[ThyHarrowing]

I'm not a modder yet so unfortunately I can't help make an overhaul like that but the topic caught my eye. To be honest, I didn't read your entire post but most of it and I agree with you; master is still to easy and a lot of the fights in vanilla skyrim boil down to very repetitive encounters. I agree that skyrim could benefit from some of the changes you mentioned but I have a couple mod suggestions that could satiate your appetite for more grueling gameplay.

 

1. Balanced Combat

2. Advanced High-Level Gameplay

 

My apologies if you already knew about them but it sounds like you are just aching for a harder game that, therefore, requires more strategy as a result... so I figure I'd mention these. The former boosts the health and damage of all enemies substantially and also boosts your own magicka damage to compensate since low-mid level spells are very useless at high levels later on. At master you have to struggle to survive and you don't have to feel to guilty when you abuse smithing and alchemy to make insane armor/weapons because you need it. The latter mod just introduces higher level enemies like level 60 bandit elites instead of the max level in vanilla skyrim (which I think was 40).

 

Hope this helps at least until a mod that is more along the lines of your demon souls/dark souls formula comes out

[MrYoinkster]

There's a mod called SkyRe. SkyRe is an overhaul that adds new combat, lighting, races, enemy scaling, and much more.

Like Dark Souls, when you swing a sword it takes down stamina, but does more damage, enemies are also stronger. Blocking takes down your stamina and you health ( but not as much). When you pull back an arrow on a bow, it starts taking down your stamina a little bit at a time.

 

Adding this mod with the elite knight armor, and Zweihander animations mod, you can get an awesome-looking character! I know I just when totally off topic but those 5 mods make the game much better.

 

Links:

SkyRe: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/9286

 

elite knight armor: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/22899

 

Zweihander animations: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16351