» Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:14 am (Based on my old SCA combat mod but bigger and MUCH better!)
OBSE needed.
Check list of items not done yet:
[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
[ ] Assorted game setting changes
[ ] Make the INI file
[ ] 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.
Weapons combat that feels more realistic based on my 30 years of full speed full contact western style melee tournament experience:
(As much as I am able to do in an Oblivion mod.)
-NO MORE BLOCK RECOIL! Staggering and recoil will happen from “hits” and other combat related reasons but no more "hobbled" attack combos! and “paralyze” will almost never happen!
-Locational hits with critical damage (INI settable)
-Blunt damage will be more effective against light armor.
-Location armor for the head body and legs. Wearing a good helmet may be all you need!
-Tweaked Enemy AI to watch for the player’s “tells”, but this also means you can “trick” them!
-You can now use actual “real life” sword and shield “feints” to land your shots ( such as the rising snap! )
-BOTH Passive and Active blocking!
-Weapon / Shield size matters! Bigger weapons/ shields give you more geometric protection. But they also take more fatigue to parry with! The bigger the weapon/shield relative to you body size the better your passive block chance. The better your block skill the better your chance to parry. Bigger heavy Shields/weapons have an advantage to absorbed more momentum then lighter smaller ones. Moving a big shiled for active parry will use more fatigue but less when pasive blocking powerful attacks. Powerful attacks on a small shield/weapon will fatigue the defender faster.
-INI setting to choose fast twitch Taper calculation or Binary stat based calculation parrying. However either choice still allows for passive blocking!
-AI settings have been overhauled to attack and move more deviously, dynamically and ruthlessly at higher player levels.
-AI settings have been overhauled to block and dodge more cautiously, relentlessly and effectively at all player levels.
-Draining your fatigue completely with “button bashing” will result in blurred vision! ( INI settable )
-Defensive geometry and great timing is now more important than great speed and reflexes. The angle of attack is a little tighter, so Offensive Geometry is more important to land a shot.
-Footwork and range games are now very important for blocks and attacks.
-H2H now includes "grapple blocks" and throws.
-Fighting Giants is now a very scary venture, sometimes the only way to live is to run away!
-Bottle necking overwhelming numbers (such as in doorways) and other such tricks MUST be done or you will die!
-Weapon speed (timing) vrs damage is now the second most important tactical consideration. Heavy one-handed weapons take an eternity to hit, but they hit HARD!
-Power attacks now require good timing to land but they do more damage damage!
-WRAPS This is a shot where you stand very close and swing your weapon to “wrap” around your opponent’s shield thus reducing the benefits of a large shiled.
- Aiming under their weapon or shield gives a bonus to land your shot.
- If a feint works, the shield or weapon will move out of position right before the attack lands. What this does is give you a flash of the opponent being OPEN for the shot as you land the blow!
-Results are based on the attributes, actions timing, conditions and dynamics of the combat not on simplistic dice rolls. This means you can eventually learn to take advantage of the subtle factors in combat and predict your opponent's action.
- All blunt weapons now have a good chance to stagger or even "push over" depending on how "heavy" the blunt weapon is and how strong the attacker is (modified by his fatigue) verse the target's strength.
The following extended explanations are a bit disorganized. It was consolidated from all my weeks of design notes. I will organize it better for the read me file:
BASE weapon damage, range and speed for melee weapons have necessary adjustments for the mod to work. However these adjustments make the weapons more realistic as well. For example weapon hit range is adjusted for the sweet spot of the weapon not the tip. And War hammers do not swing quickly like they are made of plastic. Damage is not dramatically cranked up only balanced realistically with the speed and range of the weapon. Dramatic critical damage is done via scripting and is adjustable in the INI.
However It is highly recommended you do not reduce the damage via the INI because armor is more effective now and blocking skill is much more effective at reducing damage if a block is successful.
The bigger the weapon/shield relative to your body size the better your passive block chance. The better your block skill the better your chance to parry.
All weapons and Shields and even H2H are able to block up to 99% however that will only happen if your block skill is 100% and if you do not "miss" your block and only for active parry. The way the system works H2H parry of a sword blow is very hard, weapon parry of a sword is less so and shield are much easer. However if you have the skill you can do close in grapple blocks that can stop even a war hammer by impeding the limbs that swing the weapon instead of leting the weapon "stop" on your hands!
Passive blocks will block about %80 damage and have less chance of success then active blocks.
So there are two things that happen when you block or parry, a check is done to see if you miss the block/parry, if that happens all the damage hits you, you will actually see the actors weapons/shield/arms get knocked aside. But if you do not miss your parry/block then your block skill is used to see how much damage is deflected. And bigger heavy Shields/weapons have an advantage to absorbed more damage then lighter smaller ones.
Chance to succeed is based on the size of the shield/weapon combined with your block skill and then modified by may factors such if it is active (the first .5 of a seconds you press block) or passive (all the time after .5 of a second) as well as fatigue, any feints, whether it is a power shot or not (power shots are easer to catch because they are slower and have a lot of body language broadcasting) and a few other factors.
Block skill is always doubled for damage deflection. So a 20 block skill will deflect as if it was a 40 IF you do not miss your block. This makes missing the block more important a concern then how much damage you "could" deflect. But extremely powerful blows from giants or war hammers will blow thru even the best high skilled blocks eventually unless the weapon/shield used to block is very large and heavy.
You can do feints, start a blow aiming at the feet and finish it at the head (this is known as a rising snap) and it will greatly hinder your opponents chance to succeed at the parry/block. Same with starting a blow in one range then finishing in another range, or starting a blow on one flank then finishing on another. IF you can manage it you can combine all these as well.
If you are in H2H range and no shield you can sidestep to trigger an Grapple type flip (with some basic animations) or you can do an Grapple parry where you hinder the movement of your opponent's limbs/shoulder/hips instead of deflecting the blade of the attacking weapon (also with basic animations). This means H2H can "stop" a great sword attack but again only if up in very close range and only if your block and h2h skills are succeed at doing so. Most of the formulas use a bell curve instead of tapered "levels". Meaning even a 1st level PC has a chance to Grapple parry a great sword attack but it is very unlikely to happen.
I also use a “diminishing returns philosophy” in some of the calcs were going from a skill 80 to a skill 90 will not give you the same jump in results as you did from skill 40 to skill 50.
The cool thing is you can do this if no weapons or even with a one handed weapon no shield! So if you are out of h2h range you parry/block with the sword, but in h2h range you do the Grapple parry and you can do the Grapple throws.
This gives a GREAT tactical reason to fight with a sword but no shield if your skills are up to it. At beginning levels you will NEED a big shield to survive fights. And when you come up against really good opponents that block like a devil you can trick them with feints!
All this makes changing range in combat VERY important, and the size of your shield/parry weapon VERY important and gives you many options in fighting style all while still being as close to realistic combat as Oblivion will allow me to make.
H2h skill and fatigue and block skill play the biggest part in the Grapple blocks and throws.
Like my Archery mod you can hit the head for extra damage. A power shot to a head that is not wearing a helmet can kill in one shot!
Head shot gives the most damage. Then the body does about half what the head will and then the legs/feet do the least amount of damage. This is player settable in the INI.
A blow (that dose enough damage) to the legs can trip your opponent.
Aiming under their weapon or shield gives a bonus to land your shot (they receive a penalty to block). So if they have a small shield or a weapon and you hit them in the body or legs you get a bonus. If they have a medium shield and you aim at their legs you get a bonus. Again the formula for this takes into account the size of the shield or weapon relative to the size of the opponent using that weapon/shield.
There will be top left message to tell you about location shots, feints and other stuff. This can be turned off in the INI file.
Also new are "Wrap shots!" This is when you get in close (H2H range) with a weapon that is either a top heavy weapon (blunt) or a blade that is longer than 2 feet. This allows you to do wrap shots or scorpion shots that circle around the shield to hit.This produces a weaker attack but cuts the shield/weapon size (passive block chance) by 50%. To trigger this just get in real close with an appropriate weapon. No special animation for this, however most of the normal ones look good enough once you are in that close.
All of these new maneuvers will now work in the game the same way it would work in RL with some limitations do to the fact I am molding an existing game and not creating one from scratch. For example a great shot is to start a blow out of range aimed at the head on the left flank, then lunge in and finish the blow at the legs moving (side stepping) to the right flank. this combines the range feint and flank feint and target feint and wrap shot all in one and is very good at harvesting legs! This is a RL move and works in the game the same way.
There is a bit of script that if you are getting up you can be knocked back to the ground if hit with enough force again. I hated the way actors could just slowly rise to their feet again even when they were being clobbered repeatedly on the back as they got up. This makes getting tripped to the ground very dangerous! Actors do not hit the legs very often as they are not hard coded to be able to. It can happen if you are on a slop, stairs or other such circumstances. This "Get beat down again" feature can be turned off in the INI file.
When you hit at an opponent on the ground it is always body hits and sometimes legs as there is no reliable way to detect head shots in a prone position.
Location armor for the head body and legs. Wearing a good helmet may be all you need!
Blunt damage will be more effective against light armor, So if you have an opponent with a Light helmet (like a chain hood or leather or fur ) and you want to do more damage with the head shot damage hit him with a blunt weapon!
Critical locational damage will not happen unless your opponent missed their block or you are around to the side or back where they do not "block"? Other wise the damage will be normal low vanilla damage (the damage that is inflicted on one who is successfully blocking.)
So fights could be fast and brutal or go on for a long fight depending on how well they block and what armor they are wearing verses what weapons you are using and where you hit them!
AC of the armor will reduce the damage directly.
So a HEAVY Type helmet (steel plate) with AC 2 would reduce the critical head damage by 20% if hit with a sword and 20% if hit with a blunt.
So a Light Type helmet (chain hood) with AC 2 would reduce the head damage by 20% if hit with a sword and 10% if hit with a blunt.
Agility attribute has a small effect on the actors accuracy to hit the head. An Actor must still aim at the head but if they are a little off center they could miss if their agility is bad. But a miss only means it becomes a body shot. So moving around a lot in combat could very well save you from a head shot! Accuracy is improved when directly behind an opponent. This in turn means critical damage is easier to achieve. So do not let an opponent slip around you and hit you from behind.
Shield or weapon will move out of position right before the attack lands. What this does is give you a flash of the opponent being OPEN for the shot as you land the blow! This is not how it is in RL as RL combat is more subtle than the shield suddenly not being up for the block, but for the game it does give you that feeling of tricking your opponent into moving his shield in the wrong way and creating an open pathway to hit them. This will happen if your feint works or any thing that would make their block skill go to 0 such as very low fatigue and a bad bit of luck on their part.
Generally your player reflexes should not determine the success of the feint, your stats and your opponent's stats and other combat conditions should. But you will need to be Prompt and Accurate in finishing your blow after a feint works or you will lose your opportunity.
Grapple type throw with a weapon in one hand you get a 25% penalty to the success.
Feinting - Feinting is the act of starting a swing one way then changing (mid swing) to another way.
I have several chapters in my SCA Combat Book on this subject but due to the limitations of moding Oblivion I had to adapt this vast amount of information to a very simple system. But it is as close to RL as I could make it for Oblivion.
The fundamental of most feints is to reduce the amount of time your opponent has to respond to an attack. This is done by hiding or camouflaging the start or end or all of your attack as much as possible. You must either hide or camouflage the clues that tell your opponent where the attack will land, the pathway the attack will take, the threat level or the timing of the attack.
For the mod there are four kinds of basic feints that can be attempted:
Target Feint: Start high then finish low or vise versa
Flank Feint: Start the attack off center on their left then finish on their right or vice versa.
Range Feint: Start the attack at one range then finish at a much different range.
Blind Feint: Place and hold your shield in their face for a moment then throw a fast shot.
These basic 4 can then be combined into 10 other compound feints:
Blind Flank Target Range Feint
Blind Flank Target Feint
Blind Flank Range Feint
Flank Target Range Feint
Blind Target Range Feint
Blind Flank Feint
Blind Target Feint
Target Range Feint
Blind Range Feint
Flank Target Feint
This makes 14 feints total that can be used in the game.
You may attempt them when ever you want as often as you like. But when one of the 14 types succeeds (you land your shot) then that same feint cannot be used again until they are not expecting it any more. The time for this is twice their intelligence in seconds. You may still use the other 13 feints and so on until all the feints have been used. Then latter once the timer on each feint zeros out you can use that same feint again. There is no way to know when this is, you will need to use your intuition.
Success of feints is related to fatigue, so in some cases it may want to tire your opponent before throwing your easiest less powerful feints.
For a feint to work they must be able to see you (and your false clues). So any attacks at 90 degrees to (their side) or more will not allow a feint to work.
There are an many of ways do the feints, all you must do is throw your blow one way then finish it in another way using moves that do not fight against momentum.
For example to do a target feint you could thrust at their feet then at the last moment finish the thrust at their head. Or swing the attack high and drop into a crouch to hit them in the legs. Or power attack at their legs and step up on a rock to land the blow on their head. In the game all you need to be aware of is where your cross hair is aimed at and when. The shorter the time you spend in the "real" part of attack the more effective it will be. So your best feints will be ones that combine the most false clues and then use the least amount of time to land the blow once you are no longer giving the false clues.
The Blind feint is done by holding your block (with a shield) up and lifting your crosshair until the shield completely blocks the actors LOS. Basically you need to put your crosshair in their eyes. Hold it for a brief moment then immediately fire a fast attack!
Range Feint is triggered by Starting the attack at one range then finish the attack at a dramatically different range (30% change in range while still IN range.)
In Real Life combat range transitions are where many fights are won or lost (the killing blow is often landed). This is because the angles of attack and the "parts" of the weapon that can strike you change as you move away or in close. A pommel attack can turn into a blade attack in this way for example.
These feints can be performed serendipity as well! Meaning that due to the Dynamic nature of combat an opponent can throw a blow high and without purposely doing so finish the blow low such as if they miss your head and the blow pass on by and hits your torso instead. So in a fight you may throw many feints without even realizing it. In truth this is how many shots get by one's differences even when no feints are purposely used. This will happen in the game as well. You may be suspired to see that you succeed at this or that feint even when you did not know you were doing one.
As with all my mods the results of these feints are based on the attributes, actions timing and conditions and dynamics of the combat not on simplistic dice rolls with only a very few exceptions. This means you can eventually learn to take advantage of the subtle factors in combat and predict your opponents action. For example if your opponent shifts suddenly from you left to your right closing in quickly from out of range attacking after holding their shield up you know this could well be a "Blind, Flank Range Feint". This would be very hard to block (your block calculations will be dramatically penalized) so ducking or moving out of range may be a better tactic then trying to move your shield to block!
All blunt weapons now have a good chance to stagger or even "push over" depending on how "heavy" the blunt weapon is and how strong the attacker is (modified by his fatigue) verse the target's strength.
Some players have removed their cross hair. Cross hair is not needed, it just makes explaining the feints easer. In truth it is ONLY the "middle of your screen" basically where you are looking at, the "zone of best perception" that is straight out from your nose.
I fight 1/3 of the time in first person myself, many of the feints are defiantly easier to do in first person. But can be done in 3rd with practice. However feints like flank and range are just as easy in 3rd as in first.
It is fun to watch the arena fight with this as well, they act WAY different than before, a little "smarter". For example if one has a long sword but no shield they will back up a lot more. A fist fighter will dodge in and out depending on if they are trying to avoid a weapon attack and if they think they can do the Graple blocks or not.
Possible feature but not yet in the mod : helmets may reduce your active parry chance. Leg armor may reduce acrobatics.
you only mentioned 1 handed so far.
