Er....um... you did know you could adjust the damage done to you in that mod right?

But really the entire idea is that you are forced to learn the tricks to prevent enemies from getting behind you.
In combat a rear flank attack is very very dangerous.

In our SCA wars (were hundreds or even thousands of us all fight in two large "teams") this is often how our greatest fighters would eventually get killed by the er...less great fighters, if the great ones got a little sloppy or too exhausted.

Maneuvering and using obstacles around you like trees or doorways or even the other actors is the key! The problem is in teaching these skills to players. I may need to make a mod for that, by expanding on my basic combat training mod.

In the case of the conjurers (in my own game play) I do constant circling so that any summoned monster would end up to my side not behind me.

In this new mod (melee combat mod) I may not have any "special" rear flank damage, but a rear flank attack may give the attacker a better chance to land a critical shot. So it is about the same thing with less "artificial" game mechanics. However this crititcal damage is adjustable via the INI.

Really excited about this, Duke! I'm waiting for this one to use on my final playthrough before Skyrim arrives. :foodndrink:

Greetings my lord!

Would you know anyone that can make a "body chuck" animation for this mod? :hubbahubba:

If I would, you'd be the first to know, mate. But unfortunately I don't know any animators. :no:

I am trying to fine tune the parry fatigue consumption system tonight, it is very difficult because I want to do this dynamically by calculating as many important variables as I can pull from my experience without it being so complicated that it will be unpredictable. I want the decision to active or passive parry to be "deep" with enough tactical variables to make it a serious decision but at the same time be something you can do in a fraction of a second.

I am not sure if I described this before or not, but the lighter weapons will use less fatigue to move around (as in active parry) but will consume more in a passive block if hit by a larger weapon.

This means that a large beefy shield will consume less if you just passive block with it, however if you are being pounded on by a war hammer you might want to consume that extra fatigue anyway (for active parry) to help reduce the damage you will take.

Your decision will need to take into account how much stronger your opponent is, how much larger your parry weapon is compared to the weapon that will hit you, how much passive coverage you have (shield will have a lot more than blades) your block skill level, how hard the attack will be to parry (if they feint active parries will be less likely to succeed) the attacker's momentum, and their fatigue and your fatigue and the weapon type to be countered (are you about to be hit by a dagger or a mace?).

All this should work mostly intuitively, or at least be consistent enough with RL for it to eventually become intuitive.

Haha, my concern was ill-placed. I eagerly await this mod as it sounds absolutely 100% to my tastes and in all honesty as close to perfection as I can see combat in a game getting.
Thank you for your response, I appreciate it. And thank you 100 times over for the effort and time you are putting into what will undoubtably become a must have in my, and I'm sure many other's, Load order. Best of luck to you.

Your questions are more or less covered here and there in this thread but I guess I could consolidate it for those that are interested in the H2H and stealth characters. Keep in mind this is not intended to be a H2H overhaul mod, it is a melee weapons mod but H2H enhancements just kind of evolved out of the Melee weapons mechanics.


Points of interest (when you use my default INI settings)

- ALL Melee Weapons range, speed and damage will adhere to a stringent balancing system
that will make shorter weapons have "relatively" low damage but very high damage rates and longer weapons will have "relatively" low damage rates but high damage.

- Shields and weapons will use more fatigue and have less chance to succeed when blocking larger more powerful weapons depending in part on your block skill. But smaller weapons use less fatigue when moving them in and out of the "wards" (the on guard positions).

- If you have high skill and attributes to do so close in “grapple blocks” will be the most efficient way to stop H2H and weapons damage in a fight.

- If you have high skill and attributes to do so close in “grapple throws” will be the most powerful way to stop H2H and weapons damage in a fight.

- If you have high skill and attributes to do so you can do as many Bob and Weave (dodge) as you have fatigue to burn. Unlike my previous version this maneuver is much easer to use in the game as it only requires you to perform a sneak and block action at the same time to trigger it. This stats based Bob and Weave dodging is adapted from one of my older mods.

- Critical hit system gives you a large multiplier for head damage and trip and fall effect for leg shots. Combine this with my elevated power attack game settings and it is not too hard to get a one shot kill with a rear flank sneak attack even with only a dagger. I am considering an "ignore armor" effect as well for rear attacks.

- Hard blows to an opponent as they are getting back up from the ground can knock them back down.

- Body movement can add a lot of extra force to your attacks



The following is actual game play with my mod (using my default settings):

You sneak up into a campsite on an embankment. There are 3 dangerous looking bandits at the campfire talking about how they hate mudcrabs.
One small guy with a shield and sword. One big guy with a war hammer and full plate armor and a little further away is a girl in leather armor and claymore.

You only have a dagger and you are all out of poisons and arrows so you need a plan to take them out fast…a good one.

The girl is too far away and the big guy might not fall to a one shot hit with a dagger especially with a full plate helm on. So you rear flank sneak attack the small guy plunging your dagger deep into the base of his skull with a power attack. He is dead before he meets the dirt. The giant turns to power attack you with his war hammer. With a large blunt weapon this is a very slow type of attack so you Bob and Weave (duck under and sidestep) the massive blow easily.

You strike the side of his knee with your dagger. It may not be much damage, but it is just enough to upset his stance. His huge body overtakes his other leg sending him falling to the ground. He will be down for several seconds so you turn to face the charging woman warrior that seems very intent on bathing in your blood!

You know you might have a small chance to parry the claymore with your dagger but even if you succeed to deflect most of the damage with your small blade you would consume way too much fatigue in the act.

However she is smaller than you and you are a master in H2H skills, so you think it would be best to use a grapple throw instead. Using only one hand would be much harder (there is a penalty to grappling if one hand holds a weapon) and you need to get this right the first time. So in an incredibly brazen move you sheath your dagger and charge in to close the distance bare handed before she can land her shot.

You surprise her In close (h2h range) by stopping her attack with a quick grapple block (a hard slap of the palms to her shoulder and arm). She winds around for another swing but you counter it with a grapple throw. Her grip on the claymore breaks as she hits the ground face first. Her weapon rolls away and you grab it off the ground and turn to face the giant again. Two good shots as he is getting up puts him back down, this gives you time to step past him and spin around attacking his rear flank as he gets up again. All the momentum you gained from spinning around to hit him rips thru his steel helmet. His last breath is forced from his mouth with a sound that leaves no doubt as to his ability to continue to fight.

You then turn toward the girl to finish her off with the claymore but unfortunately at this point you are very low on fatigue, so although she is smaller than you are she is able to throw you the same way you did her moments ago. But this time the claymore spins out over the embankment and is no longer a factor in this fight.

Ok, fine you are both now H2H, she is smaller but she must have some skills to have thrown you so easily even if you were on the brink of exhaustion. You use a few passive blocks to buy time, it hurts but it is better than not blocking her attacks and you need to recover your fatigue so active parrying is not worth it right now.

Once you have caught your breath you fake a left (start the attack on one side ) then strike her right (finish the attack on the other side) with several shots to her head. The feint works and you will see her arms move out of the proper "on guard" position.

The unhindered punch to her head makes her flinch in pain long enough for you to step back and draw your dagger again. She step in and strikes but you grapple block her with your off hand, she is tired so it is not hard to do even with only one free hand. You lash out with several slashes to her head and eventually cut thru her leather armor. Her body surrenders to gravity and falls to the ground!

The fight ends almost too late as your fatigue is so low now you are straining to breath. You gaze down at your fallen foes thinking; "By the Nine Divine that was a stupid idea, what was I thinking taking on the three of them like that. They had better have arrows on them..."

Update to the features:

Fast Rest

If you stop moving and do not exert yourself (casting, attacking, blocking, dodging, jumping and so on ) you can fast rest to regenerate your fatigue a little faster than normal. With this enabled player and actors will fast generate Fatigue under certain circumstances.

THIS WILL ONLY WORK IN COMBAT!

Set to 0 to turn this off.

I assume you mean this in the context of a sneak attack rather than just any attack from behind. If so, I like this idea. My other thought would be that the amount of armor ignored is proportional to one's Sneak skill, with maybe a flat ini set multiplier for those who want to scale how effective the tactic is.

A master at stealth (100 Sneak) would have a much higher chance of slipping a blade through the joints of plate mail than a novice. And even with that expertise, you could still argue the armor will still provide some protection (friction, surface area). Perhaps the effectiveness is based on the sneak attacker's armorer skill, reflecting their knowledge of where the weak points are.

a 100 Sneak 100 Armorer with a flat 1.0 modifier would be able to ignore the full armor value when successfully sneak attacking every time.

a 50 Sneak 50 Armorer with a flat 1.0 modifier would reduce the effectiveness of the defender's armor by 25%.

a 20 Sneak 30 Armorer with a flat .5 modifier would reduce the effectiveness of the defender's armor by a measily 3%.

If you do decide to include something like this, let me know, 'cause if not, it is such a great idea, I may want to incorporate it into my SDR Sneaking Detection Recalibrated mod as part of the hardcoe package options.

Alternatively, if you like the idea for the code above, I could just figure it out and share it so that it could be used in either mod without requiring the other. Folks would just have to make sure to turn it off for one of the two mods so that one setting doesn't override the other if they have both installed.

saebel

Your suggestions are not bad, :thumbsup:

but I do not think we are really talking about he same thing.

In this Melee Combat mod the Shield becomes a definitive wall of defense. Button bashing against a well-trained shield man will only result in exhaustion. The player must maneuver into a good angles to attack, outlast their opponent with superior character attributes or deceive the opponent (with various tricks) into dropping or misadjusting their "ward" at just the right time!

The player must maintain their defensive geometry relative to their own defense (the shield or other "parry weapon"). The player must strive to move into positions that herd opponents into their least favorable attack angle!

It is a game mechanic I would like to see more often in PC games especially sword fighting games where Combat Geometry is a HUGE part of Melee combat in real life but almost ignored in PC games.

Combat Geometry is a vast and complex subject but includes such things as the angles of attack over and under and around obstacles including your own shield as well as their shield, range strategy where different types of attacks, stance and the direction you face and your opponent faces and even what hand (left or right) you hold your weapon in can actually change the range without your center or their center ever moving at all. In RL sword combat attacks made in range transitions are where most fights are won or lost.

However what I am focusing on now are "in combat" ("not in sneak mode") rear flank attacks because locational damage is now in this mod and is a somewhat separate concept. And rear sneak mode attacks are already handled by the game in the form of vanilla sneak attack modifier.

Critical hits are can be found all over your body, but when you are hit from behind many are much easier to hit! The attacker has more confidence in their attack, their accuracy is better, they are not as distracted by a likely counter attack and they need not work the attack past normal defenses and so forth.

I agree that a knowledge of armor would be very useful for a sneak mode attack, maybe you can make a mod that adds a slight modifier to the vanilla sneak bonus system for this.

However even wolves know (when attacking in packs) some of them must circle (very wide to sneak in the attack) to the flank and bite on the inside thigh and rectal area (going for the main arteries) . Bees seek out fleshy gaps in clothing to sting, and humans that have no knowledge of armor or even much combat experience "know" that the armpits are almost impossible to armor. And yet a plethora of sensitive targets are clustered there like a very large artery, important tendons and a concentration of nerves. Hitting this area with a fist can incapacitate the arms for a while and penetration wounds there can even kill.


So the concept I am interested here is meant to encourage proper Combat Geometry in the game. The player should be worried to see many low level opponents coming at them,

now a pack of wolves can be a threat! Now you may need to think twice about turning your back on your opponent, and standing still in a fight will be more than a challenge!

I am trying to make this more of an important "combat factor" then a new combat skill.

Real life combat is only about half muscle memory (physical skill). The other half is Strategy, Combat Geometry, Timing, Deception, Physiology... and then either instinct, luck or experience with "combat factors".

When I started moding years ago my mods were only proof of concept projects to explore the idea of including the realistic mental aspects and to encourage simulating the physics of real combat.

But I have been pleasantly surprised to find players that really enjoy the realism, this movement in games like Oblivion is something I think will be the norm in the future instead of high fantasy were anything goes as long as it pumps your endorphins or even the opposite side of the coin the "spread sheet" based game play that requires too much indoctrination to enjoy.

I think virtual immersion games like Oblivion, Half-life, Portal, Fall out and so forth will get more and more realistic (less about game-ish perks and penalties and more about real time physics and simulation) because the advantages do serve both "new" players of such games (the larger sector of the population that never use to play such games but now are accepting them as a serious alternative to movies) and the game companies bottom line as well.

The advantages include shorter learning curves because the more realistic a game is the more intuitive it is. Then more people will play such games, more money can be made and more money will go into the game R&D.

Good point.



Excellent idea, and much easier to implement than what I was originally planning to do, with ultimately the same result.



I'm with you there. Trying to do the same thing with SDR, only with light/shadows, movement, peripheral vision, etc. Really researched the heck out of it so that when you sneak around, you really have to think about everything you are doing, and not just take off your boots.



I certainly hope you are right!

Thanks for the response, and being a (now rarely practicing) fencer/martial artist myself, I am really looking forward to the release to see what you have done.

saebel

ok...I am extremely intrigued by this. Can you please post a Link here to your thread for your mod?

I think I want need it in my personal load order. And I would like to run it while I work on my mod to try to maintain compatibility

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1170938-relz-new-mod-sneaking-detection-recalibrated/

Also, there is a new version coming out very very soon.* I'll pm you with details if you'd like to try that out before it's released (recommend).

*caveat: Unless the world ends on Saturday. Although I'm betting against.

Progress:

[Done ] Aim under shield/weapon bonus
[ Done] momentum damage bonus for player and actors.
[ ] Melee combat Tokens for creatures
[ ] Merge in Duke Patrick’s Smash of the titans mod
[20% ] Assorted game setting changes
[20% ] Make the INI file
[50% ] Separate out my legacy items such as buffed traps changes
[80% ] Finish the Read Me file
[ ] Gather all the resources into a zip
[ ] Something I am not remembering just now.
[ ] Beta Testing
[DONE ] Overcome issue with detecting model lengths in script loops.

Are you going to keep the shield bashing as it is now in the archery mod instead?

I recall you telling me that the older shield mod was still more comprehensive than what is in the archery mod.

Or is my memory faulting again?

mmmm...errr....I think you are asking me if I will be changing the Archery mod per this mod?

no, not that I can think of at this time.

The only reason I might change the archery mod per this mod
would be if I could get a "body chuck" in this mod but so far no animations available
so it looks like the "Body Chuck" will not be in my mod in the near future.

But I will be always looking for one. Maybe this will finally get me to buckle down to learning how to animate.
But that would be after this mod is already released.

No your older mod called SCA shield tricks - which the archery mod has partial version of in it.

Will there be shield tricks integrated into this.

Oh I see, sorry I was slow on the uptake.

From what I can remember from that mod...no.

That stuff, The Shield Charge, Shield Hook and Shield Press "tricks" could find its way into this mod eventually but not for the first release.

I think that mod might still work with this mod however.

I expanded the grapple THROW so that a fighter with a 2handed weapon can do them now.
But if you have a 2h blunt weapon like a War-hammer you will get another penalty to executing the maneuver.

Sorry guys...

After play testing this for an hour I found it was too powerful, but I will try to find a way to put it back in someday.
It was just way too easy to throw the guy and just pound him to death with the 2H warhamer while he was helpless and lost his weapon.
And throws should not be so easy if you are griping onto a 2h war hammer with one hamd.

Throws will still work for bare hand and if you use 1h weapons, just not the 2h weapons now.
Grapple BLOCKS will work even if you are using 2h weapon.

Tripping success will depend on how much damage you do to their leg and how your opponent is shifting their balance at the time.

They are attacking............................. Best time to try to trip them (requires only a little damage).
They are doing no attack no block....A little less so (requires twice as much).
They are blocking.............................Worst time to try to trip them (requires massive damage).

I will be starting on the Creature tokens phase tomorrow.

I'm very excited to see you working on this Spooky. I've been a fan of your mods for over a year now and I'm thrilled to see you putting more work into your combat mod!

Best of luck. I know I speak for many of us when I say we're waiting with baited breath!

oh sure... thanks! :hehe:

Before I move on to other to do list jobs I was doing some testing tonight to tweak the fatigue consumption
and I think I have it now the way I want it...close enough for now anyway.

I am testing with a high level PC with 100 strength and 100 block.

My high level PC can "active parry" a war axe with a dagger but will lose about half her fatigue on about 1/4 the blows.
(Forget about a passive block with the dagger however even at high levels unless the attacker is very weak!)

I do test with lower levels like a 20 block and 20 strength. But I like to design the mechanics around a high level PC because that is the GOAL to reach that state. If you struggle a great deal at parrying a war axe with a dagger at low levels...well that is how it should be, one should then get a large shield not a dagger to fight with until your PC has gained some skill.

The big hit to your fatigue on only about 1/4 the blows is because the opponent's fatigue is too low much of the time to put power in their attack.
I hate that you cannot see that fact in the animation of the attack.

I want to change the speed of the attack based on the fatigue but I would have to mod acrobatics speed and athletics in order to do that. There is just no easy way to slow the weapon down on a individual basses.

I can make a "slower" clone of the weapon and change that in the hands of the actor but that would mean a HECK of a lot more code done every time the fatigue changed each 1/4 of a second or more.

I will have to decided latter if I really want to mod the mod acrobatics speed and athletics to slow down the weapon at low fatigue levels.


edit: I worked out a way to make the Actors REST more instead, so I will not be fooling with modding acrobatics, speed and athletics to slow down the weapon at low fatigue levels.

Will we see the return of Hammerblade?

Also...tHiS lOoKs AwEsOmE!

Probably not in the first release of this mod. That mod was very complicated, and did not included broken weapons. So it would still need a lot of work "merge".

I am about to get dinner and the work on the Creature tokens. This will be a big job for this 3 day weekend but once done will mean the mod is more than 80% done!


I have the following to report:

As it is now if you are up very close to your opponent you are assumed to be throwing wraps shots. These are “scorpion” type attacks that swing around the parry weapon (shield) bypassing the passive coverage and hitting the back of your opponent. The power is reduced from normal but it is still a very effective blow and often the only shot practical in such situations.

I am going to change this so that you only throw wrap shots IF you are close AND your opponent is blocking.

Remember when I explained that COP is Center Of Percussion and COG is Center Of Gravity?

There is a technique with long COP weapons (such as a long sword) sometimes called a "short shot" . This is when you hit with the COG (a little above the hilt of the sword) instead of the COP part of the weapon. This effectively results is an 3 pound sword attack that hits almost like a 3 pound Axe.

Now because the transfer of force is much slower than normally would be if you had hit on the COP the sword takes a moment longer to throw the next shot.

Thus you have purchased an axe like attack (chance to stagger and reduced light armor protection) at the cost of a delay in your next attack.

So now when you are up very close with a long blade weapon and the opponent is not blocking instead of a Wrap Shot it will be a Short Shot.


Also, I worked out a way to make the actors REST when their fatigue is too low. So now their attacks will not be too weak all the time. Instead they will not attack until their fatigue is back up to where it needs to be in about the same way the player should if they are managing their fatigue properly!

Progress:

[Done ] Aim under shield/weapon bonus
[ Done] momentum damage bonus for player and actors.
[20% ] Melee combat Tokens for creatures
[ ] Merge in Duke Patrick’s Smash of the titans mod
[25% ] Assorted game setting changes
[35% ] Make the INI file
[50% ] Separate out my legacy items such as buffed traps changes
[80% ] Finish the Read Me file
[10% ] Gather all the resources into a zip
[ ] Something I am not remembering just now.
[ ] Beta Testing
[DONE ] Overcome issue with detecting model lengths in script loops.