I am using them and think they are a very good initiative on your part. But I do have a hard time figuring out where the wind comes from at times (or if it was my poor marksman skill that made the arrow flight bent).

So how to give an immerse way to know where it blows (I kinda dismiss the idea that the grass and trees shows it; I think they move randomly in all directions when it is blowing - or maybe I'm wrong?).

It might not always be easy determining wind direction when it is very slight - thus we hold up a wet finger in reality. I will give it some thought and post again if I get any ideas.

---->Also I might add that I am not really playing an archer right now but normally I use marksman skill alot, so I am kinda trying to build for the future here

I was wondering too about the length the arrow can fly - now it don't matter that much since you don't shoot arrows for that great a distance in Oblivion. But it seems like one can shoot just as far with all bows, and they take the same amount of time to aim with?

What about bow strings - keeping our bows stringed all the time would make it slack after a time. What about setting up the bow before you can use it; and the need to protect it when raining (not keeping it equipped or the bow string will get wet).

But never mind the rest - I really do like the wind factor, just need a way to find out more easily where the wind is coming from.

Cheers!

Sounds good. I have not had time to play at all (except to test my own mods) since your last release, but this mod has become a definite must-have in my mod collection. Especially since my current character is a ranger.

I do like your advanced settings now. Instead of removing the possibility of controlling all in the ini, consider making an omod installation script that let the player make some quite simple choices. This way you make it easy for all to get it to work mainly as they want, while advanced users can edit the ini directly afterwards.

The omod installation script can even start by asking if the player want a simple or advanced installation setup. If they answer "simple" they get a couple of choices (Take aim: yes/no - Difficulty: easy/medium/hard), while if they answer "advanced" they get quite a bit more choices. I do something like this in "Real Sleep Extended" and "Gold Adjustment", and will be happy to help you.

As for my ini, I use mostly default settings, with a slightly shorter take aim max time, but a slightly higher reduction per second.

I think bow sway, or alternatively some crosshair sway would greatly improve the immersion factor, but I agree that it needs to be done without swaying the camera.

The problem is that oblivion does not have wind direction, only wind speed. I pick a random wind direction each time the weather types changes. I could add a message like "The wind now blows from the NNE" with each weather change but doesn't really help the user I found. I think you need a visual aid when you are aiming your shot telling you the direction and how hard, otherwise it is impossible to correct for.




Distance is based on gravity factor and arrow speed. Could change the gravity factory based or arrow speed using OBSE based on the bow. give me a full Idea and I'll work on it.




Give me an better idea about how you want this to work. Don't really want to turn this into a crafting mod where you have to add new strings when the previous one gets old. A mod to keep you from repairing bows, you just have to get new strings and when they are wet they take more damage. Seems interesting . . . .

-dan

"I want out! I didn't know you had to followup a good idea with loads of little ones..."

1. About wind direction. In first person is it possible to add a "streamer" to the bow that show direction. A strip of "cloth" that sits about where you got your hand with a few bones in it to bend and flap nicely. You animate it to show wind direction and strenght. In third person I haven't thought of anything yet: could use a HUD element that is just an arrow with either length or numbers to show wind speed (can one add such a thing, havent heard anything about that?).

2. Bowstrings & keeping your bow safe. Add a bit of "lag" when you equip your bow; it would symbolize you getting it ready. Higher marksman skill = faster equip. ---Thus you would like to have your bow out and ready, but then it might get wet and you will have to do stage 3. I could record some noises for ya; creaking, string vibrating, clicks - thus as you get your bow ready the noises play and you know you are doing something. The longer it takes to equip the more noises are played and/or repeated.

3. When not equipped the bow is not affected by weather. Keeping your bow out in prolonged periods when it is raining, or swimming with it will need you to unequipped and re-equip = symbolizing you changing bow string. Thus, the higher marksman skill the faster you can change the string.

4. Range of bow. I don't know, maybe a check for unmitigated damage - higher damage bows are tightly strung and thus fly further.

5. I don't really know the dynamics about the damage an arrow does, but it aught to loose some power after a bit of flight right? So it aught to make less damage the further away you target is.

Just tossing out ideas - I am not saying I really like idea number 5 for example; but I thought of it and maybe you can make something else out of it.

Cheers!

You mean a crude ugly arrow, or a nice piece of cloth that blows in the wind? Crude ugly arrow I could do, but I don't think that is what anyone wants. Anyone know how to make animations?


Not sure I like it. It doesn't seem very immersive to me, but I could be wrong. How will you know when your bow needs to be re-strung? Will damage be decreased as it "takes damage". If there was a good idea for not being able to repair bows but being forced to re-string them instead by a new mechanism, that could be cool. Don't think I'm going to get to that any time soon.
I also think that either option can be worked on independently if you want to take a crack at it, we can merge them together if it works out.



Oblivion doesn't have a range limit on bows. It really is just speed and gravity. Of course a arrow with high speed and will go further before it hits the ground. Adjusting Arrow speed based on the bow is very easy (as is adjusting the arrow gravity), but I don't think that's what you are complaining about.

Based on the RBSP code you could modify arrow speed and damage as it got further away. I think that could be very cool, but it would be a lot of work (tracking the arrow as opposed to just changing its direction). Anyone feel strongly about this?

I think that's what he meant. Something like this:

Basic bow = vanilla arrow speed and normal gravity.
Medium damage bow = fast arrow and normal gravity.
High damage bow = fastest arrow and slightly less gravity.

Actually sounds kinda fun

My 2 cents on the current discussion:
I have used Bow Sway mods before and liked them since they were the best "on the market," however this mod achieves the same but in a much better way IMO. The Bow Sway mods require skill just like when playing the security mini-game, however it shouldn't be so much tied to skill like that, but instead to the actual bow-shooting character's Marksman skill. So I hope the bow sway stay out of this brilliant mod.

kandiedan,
I'm glad you're going to keep the ini since I love to tune parameters of the mods I use, so they become just right. :read:

Since you mentioned the ini yourself, why not include the sway option and make optional? Would make the mod appeal to even more people

I'm using it. But I wish there were a way to know before shooting which way the wind blows (and how hard).

Just curious if anyone is using the FCOM_ARCHERY_DEADLY esps and wondering how you like the balance of increase damage / vs harder to hit. Seems good with my low and mid level chars but I don't have much playing time on a higher level one.

-dan

On my characters, the effect of MC a4 is very small, so it's hard to tell.

Can you add a windsock compass to the hud? (I don't know how difficult this is to implement.) It would at least give you direction, if not force.

gothemasticator

In the words of my dyslexic friend, "That would be totally svcking fweet."

In other words, I love it.


Then perhaps if you do "Bow sway" it could be a new approach. For instance, "muscle fatigue" (rather than Bow Sway) could be cool. This could kick in perhaps (Endurance+Marksman)/5 seconds past prime-aiming-time. Start out with rather tiny and slow jerks (each one at random timing+direction, going out from & coming back to center). This builds to a near-constant jitter, slightly small and fast... it could be kept tight enough to reduce "dizziness" but still be a proper consequence for holding too long.

That way, "taking time to aim" still grants the normal bonus, but holding your arrow at full draw for longer periods of time will lower your chance to shoot straight with a visible and intuitive cue.

Does this mod affect NPCs, or only the player?

Only player; the consensus was that NPC svck so much in combat any way so why make it worse....

Hmm...I marvel at the NPC's in my game. They seem to be dead-on shots.

Uh, well yeah, that is there bonus to even be able to do some damage They don't use cover, they can't kite and are generally easy to fool.

They are, unless you use one of Duke Patrick's plugins to get them to miss once in a while. But still, even my level 1 character has absolutely no problem winning a 1-1 archery fight with any archer in the game, even with Marksman Challenge installed. It is just a question of keeping an eye on the enemy and sidestep whenever he shoots. So since winning archery fights are so easy already, even with this mod installed, I would absolutely loathe anything that made the NPCs weaker.

For the record, I loved Marksman Challenge from v 0.1, and consider it a definite must-have mod. Even if the archery fights are still too easy, they at least become a bit more involved and challenging now.

Hello All,

I'm working on a new version that includes special abilities ala Dragon Age.

In the mean time I figured I would release my developement work to todate.

The stagger system works alot better than alpha 4 and you get extra experience when you fire a shot even if it misses based on the amount of time you aimed for.
Everything is of course fully configurable with the ini file.
I only have about 10 hours of play test on this build so if you notice any bugs, please let me know.
I would only suggest using this if
1) You are familiar with Marksman Challenge
2) Think the changes better suit our game
3) Don't mine the ocassional bug

Otherwise stick with the older version on TesNexus (alpha 4)

http://www.mediafire.com/?n1k1xm5adzd


Also if you have any suggestions for the special abilities I would love to here (my plan is in the "changes.txt" file in the download)

-dan



Alpha 5 ChangeLog

Major - Reworked the Stagger System
- Stagger should be more immersive now
- Staggered only when hit, not random whenever enimies were close by
- Chance of stagger based on Damage Taken, Type of weapon that inflicted damage, player Marksman, Agility, Speed - some really complicated equations!
Major - Must use new INI file!!!!
Minor - When using take aim system, you will recieve extra experience when firing (even if your shot misses) based on the time you were aiming for.
Minor - It now takes Fatigue to nock an arrow
Minor - Added Denock Command (like COBL denock - without the bug)
Info - Reworked Marksman Bonus Forumla - Shots are Never perfect, even with Max Marksman Skill (With Default settings a master Marksman is 6x more acurate than a marksman of skill 25 with default settings)
Info - reworked the Movement Penalty System
Info - Reworked the Take Aim System a bit
Info - Tested with OBSE 18b4

Really cool, good to see this still being worked on. Trying out the new version now, so far everything seems right but I haven't played much yet. I really appreciate the .ini file I'll get back to you if I run into any bugs or oddities.

Just wanna say I absolutely love this mod, keep up the good work!

So what happened to Alpha 5?
Alpha 4 is the newest version available on Nexus.

And was the problem with wind direction ever solved? The idea of having to ajust aim to account for wind is good, but with no way for the player to know the wind direction it won't work in practice. Oh well, I guess that's why the default setting in the ini file is to noy use this feature.

Petrus - Isn't this very similar to Duke Patrick's combat archery - I mean, almost every feature mentioned here (and more) is covered by Duke in his excellent mod... He also has a mod that makes NPCs miss too!!

No, this mod only makes it harder for the player character to hit.
It doesn't affect NPCs and it does not do anything to bow damage.
Duke Patrick's Combat Archery are for the real hard core players, while Marksman Challenge is for "normal" players.

The link to alpha 5 is listed above. I never got much feedback on it, so I never put it up on tes nexus. Plus most people seem to prefer duke's (excellent) mod.
This is a bit more "light weight"

As for the wind. I tried adding a spell kinda like "kicking up grass" to see where the wind was blowing, but I don't have much graphics experience so it looked like crap.

If you have a good idea about how to represent this I'd love to hear it.

At the moment you can track the path of your arrows and guess the wind direction, but that's about it.

-dan