Liking it so far. Maybe weapon skills could also be part of the equation to figure out damage, as an experienced spearman would likely know more effective areas to attack. Also, is there a way to bring weapon weight into the equation? I can't imagine a wood elf with a chitin dagger effectively blocking a nord swinging away with a Daedric Warhammer, at least not without severe fatigue and possibly serious damage to his dagger. This could also add incentive to use heavier but not as damaging weapons for the weight alone. If there was a way to incorporate this, perhaps weapon skill could also help lower the damage a weapon takes when blocking?

I don't know what all is possible, just throwing out some ideas that make sense IRL and would make the experience better. That aside, this sounds like a lot of fun. While agility might be taking a back seat, speed now sounds like a good thing to build up so you can get in and out faster while attacking. Thanks for the work so far.

:clap:
I am really enthusiastic about this mod, plus I personally appreciate you're sticking native TES script. MWSE mods often seem to significantly increase CTDs during loading from a savegame for me, which of course is not what you need in a combat mod. Thanks for all the work you're putting into it!

Looks great! Thanks for the effort you put into this. You should add some kind of version history and readme (here and bundled in the download) =)

When I played, I would fall down nearly every hit I took. It might just be that I'm a low level. I was playing with the older version though, so I'll update and see what's different.

EDIT: Also blocking does level up. Except it levelled up once each time I succesfully blocked. I was fighting a DB assassin, so possibly the level of the assassin made the xp gain huge.

Casey, do you have a link to your other NPC Companion mod you mentioned earlier?

This mod has a lot of potential. I'm excited to be giving it a try tonight.

I really like the idea of factoring weapon skill into attack and fatigue damage AND fatigue damage reduction. At first I liked the weight idea--it makes sense--but after I thought about it I decided that weight is already a factor in the damage the weapon does. BIg weapons have more reach, slower attack speed, and big damage already. So why not use the amount of damage inflicted (after calculating weapon skill, strength, etc) as a modifier for the amount of fatigue inflicted on a successful block? Not 100% (i.e. NOT attack dam = fatigue dam), but some kind of modifier.

Something like: Fatigue Damage = Attacker Damage/( Blocker's Block Skill + (0.5 x Blocker's Weapon Skill)/10 )

100 damage attack versus blocker with:
100 Block and 100 Weapon Skill = 7 points fatigue damage
50 Block and 50 Weapon Skill = 27 points fatigue damage
25 Block and 25 Weapon Skill = 53 points fatigue damage

50 damage attack versus blocker with:
100 Block and 100 Weapon Skill = 7 points fatigue damage
50 Block and 50 Weapon Skill = 13 points fatigue damage

This formula needs work, and the divisor of "10" is a magic number (technically it's an average, so it's 2 x "Magic Number"). But IMHO the basic idea works.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=6859

Looks good Casey. I see you really took this concept and ran with it since I last checked in a few years ago. I'm glad one of us had the fortitude to stick with it. Gonna try it out now.

I'll try to remember to make a readme for the next release.

The knock-down chance (falling down if you take a hard hit) has been increased significantly to simulate crippling pain and shock delivered to lower level characters. I know it makes low level characters much weaker to taking hits but this encourages training the skill at lower levels. In the next release I might lower this a little bit though.

Well, the block level-up appears to be working, but is bugged... damn. I'll have it fixed in the next release.

panurgy, I like your formula but it might take awhile to get a formula together to detect attack damage taken.

razorfett147, were you the one who was working on the other project that was sort of similar? It's been a long time yeah.

Yea, back then we were having a discussion about implementing more consequential conditions in combat. I never had a project in the works, I was just brainstorming some ideas to spice up the gameplay. I was mostly hoping someone a bit more talented than I would pick up the idea and make a reality out of it. Looks like it worked.

I agree with the others about refactoring in weapon skill for damage, as well as defense. I like how you've decreased the angle of attack, so that even tho you are "hitting" all the time, it is in a narrow window. Is it possible to make it so that a higher weapon skill increases this angle? So for instance a person with 100 in Longblade could swing wider and still connect? This could bring back some of the character skill vs player skill.

And just as a suggestion, I would maybe make the marksman weapon hits dependent on range. The vanilla system is fairly realistic, as even at 20 feet, someone unskilled with a bow will have a hard time hitting a target. So the farther way you are, the less likely you are to hit, or the more likely you are to do less damage (ie hitting a limb rather than the chest, throat) which would of course all depend on the marksman skill. However, even someone unskilled probably won't miss from 10 feet away, at least not a man size target.

Anyway, I will probably try this mod out at soon as I upload it along with some others, it sounds promising.

The sword clinging sounds are cool, except when I kill an enemy or a creature, I don't like the sound it makes. It's as if it's not making any sound, or some kind of scratchy sound. Also, won't these sounds you've added conflict with other sound replacement mods?

This is very good mod! Morrowind combat needed some upgrade really, to be something else than swingswingswoshswohs

As a side note, do You plan to expand this mod? I've got an idea for the more wide weapon variatons without adding any new - the basics are already in the game, but maybe they can be expanded. What I mean is to create options for the weapon types, to be effective in their own way. Like daggers having much more critical strike chances, warhammers more knockout chance, katanas and wakizashis more speed, etc. I always disliked that while there's so many weapons in game, basically You go for the highest damage - and while starting with thief, the daggers are much useless, short swords only for a period.

So what do You think?

After playing a little last night, I noticed that some sounds just wouldn't play. I started a new game and just had a handful of edged weapons - starting dagger, iron clayore, iron sparksword, and iron saber. Seemed like roughly 50% of the time nothing would play when I would swing/thrust the weapon. Anyone else getting this? I didn't have time to fish through my sounds folder and I'm only running some tree adding mods alongside this.

Sorry for the double-post but for some reason I can't edit my last one. Another problem I forgot to mention was that at one point I was running with my claymore cocked back and ready to swing, which gave me the running strength bonus, but somehow when I got done running I ended up with a huge strength deficit and lost more strength than I had to begin with leaving me over-encumbered.

Very interesting idea, hope you get all the features in there before long

Sorry for taking so long, but I just tried this for a few minutes this morning.

• It seemed like the weapon "swish" sound would play instead of the "hit" sound quite a number of times. (I'd see the damage, I'd see the bloodspray, but the "swish" sound plays instead). I saw this happen more often when attacking an unarmed commoner from MCA, not sure if that has anything to do with it.
  
• You're right in that the screen lightening is distracting. I'm not sure if screen darkening would look much better, I'd have to see it in action.
  
• It seemed like the "clang" sound when an opponent parried would play well ahead of the follow-through of the weapon animation. Example: Draw back weapon -> release mouse button to attack -> hear "clang" sound, screen lightening -> weapon swings. It feels strange when the timing of the sound doesn't match up to when the weapon actually seems to strike the opponent.

Other than that, this is very, very cool. I like what you've done with it so far and hope you continue working on it. My only other alternative to this at the moment is Combat Enhanced, which isn't exactly bug-free and not easily modified.

Been trying this out today and some notes -

-Range on short blades seems too short - as if they're all dagger range basically, rather than short sword or wakizashi.
-Skill in weapon doesn't seem to have enough effect, I have ~25 spear skill and ~60 short blade and I feel more effective with spears which have higher damage and longer range with no real set back.
-On hit enchants are monsters of destruction with this - kind of a natural side effect that may need balancing adjustment.
-Running backwards with a long range weapon/bow needs a better deterrent, still too effective. Would be best if you simply couldn't run backwards(only walk speed) I guess - not sure if this is possible via construction set alone though.
-As others have said, the sounds and light are definitely off currently - either not playing or playing at the wrong times on many occasions.
-Enemy AI is still awful and easy to abuse, but I guess there's not a ton you can do about that - this mod just makes it easier/faster to kill them when they're caught on some pebble or whatever.


It does feel much better than the alternative random hit & miss though, despite my issues with it so far.

Had to quote this for truth. So far the idea and raw execution are just what Morrowind needed. With some polishing off, this could really entice more players to come in and try Morrowind again. I am one player, but generally most people I've shown Morrowind were not ultimately interested because of the tedious combat. I suspect most others can say the same thing and that statistically, Morrowind is at a loss of interested players because of it.

Conversely, most of these same people really enjoyed the combat in Oblivion especially with the mods I've had cycled into it, but the world was too bland to hold their interest. :thumbsdown:

Anyways, I think this could be a big start in renewing interest for all those people who bashed the combat and strike the perfect blend of mass appeal combat and atmosphere that so far none of the Elder Scrolls games have reached IMO.

The combat will still be half awful since the magic system is borked, but at least playing a stealthy archer type character with this mod my first shot(often most important) from stealth actually hits instead of the NPC somehow dodging an arrow it doesn't see coming at it like some crazy ninja robot or something.

I'd say to fully fix Morrowind's combat you'd have to go a LONG way and -

Re-balance the birthsigns and races some of which are extremely overpowered (Breton, Atronach) others which are horrible (Altmer, The Lord)
Put a limit on # of potions that can be in effect @ once.
Limit or remove skill/attribute/attack/etc. fortification, adjust certain skills that practically required it for any chance at reasonable success rates (Enchanting, maybe Alchemy at low levels).
Make on use enchanted items require the standard cast animation instead of basically being machine guns, and nerf the power of on use enchants in general as they make cast magic obsolete.
Swapping between tons of enchanted rings/amulets whenever one runs out of choice should be made impossible or limited as well.
Limit backward movement.
Rebalance magic, adjust spell costs for weaker spell effects, nerf/increase cost+enchant value of stronger ones, and probably implement some magicka regeneration so mages don't have to rest so often
Remove chameleon and invisibility from constant effect options for enchanting.
Adjust weapon weights, speed, and damage (rofl @ 50-100 lb weapons being swung near same speed as sub 10 lb ones)
Adjust armor protection levels, heavy IMO is way too strong compared to light with higher enchant removing the downside since you can fortify it in ways to negate it's weight.
Make health gain from endurance retroactive.

Yeah, it's a huge mess, but this mod is definitely a big step in the right direction at least! >_<

Would be nice to see a skill overhaul to skyrim style skill system too, which would actually be easier than fixing some of the above I'd assume.



Some more notes BTW -

Inertia buff/debuffs don't seem to be working quite right, some lasting too long after you've stopped moving and some that I assume are only supposed to be active while moving forward stay too long after you stop moving as well.

Invisibility doesn't function right.

The offensive bonus should probably apply when you're in sneak mode and not detected, seems odd that you would have a lower chance to hit when you're unseen.

More notes -
The strength boost for forward momentum is probably too much, and also allows you to move while over-encumbered.
Knockdowns probably need to be toned down a little, getting knocked down by slaughterfish while in water causes a kind of sound stutter and is also just kind of weird - don't think fish should knock me down.
Something is definitely wrong with the sound of strikes, often I hit something and it's just complete silence.

Some things I found:

1. With this mod you can go over your maximum encumbrance, and not be able to walk, but you can still run because the Inertia effect gives you a huge Strength boost. You can end up running around getting "You are encumbered" messages frequently.
Perhaps this problem could be fixed if Inertia gave you a Fortify Attack bonus instead.

2. Also, I recommend calling it "Momentum" instead of "Inertia". Inertia is in common speech synonymous with lethargy (it's related to the word inert) and even just standing there you have physical inertia. Whereas, when stationary, your momentum vector is zero relative to the observer.

3. This mod makes battles much quicker and the outcome is unpredictable. This might be reallistic but I'd prefer a slightly slower, more manageable battle.

I noticed the new sound effects right away. Unfortunately I haven't had time to test them fully.

After some playing, I second Odd Hermit's thoughts on the strength boosts. I noticed that during swing you get the "committed to attack" bonus which is 100 or so points of strength. If you're running, that's another 50. That's 150 stacked onto your base strength, which makes building up strength nearly pointless for combat since your bonuses are more than sufficient to kill an enemy.

Also, knockdowns are pretty cheap. Throwing stars in particular seem way too effective at knocking me down - if an NPC has ten or so throwing stars and the first one connects, they will probably kill me because my character cannot get up fast enough to dodge the successive ones that knock me down as well and do not allow me to get up. There's not even enough time to get into sneak mode to evade them. Therefore, the player has NO CHANCE if he is hit with a throwing weapon. The player usually does not knock down enemies, but even when you don't, throwing weapons are still way overpowered with this mod. Considering throwing weapons have killed virtually nobody throughout all recorded history, this does not strike me as realistic. (Not trying to say that in a rude manner, apologies, just not sure how else to word that.)

Lastly, I've seemed to encounter a bit of a problem with certain NPCs. I haven't gone around fighting with everyone in the game to see where else it happens, but the Redoran Guards in Ald-Ruhn after awhile seem to become completely impossible to hit with a weapon. You can connect with them for awhile, they'll block a few shots, you get a few in... then out of nowhere it's like a stat boost stays permanent on them or something and you cannot hit them. Ever.

Finally, I know many do not care but something about this mod breaks Arrow De-nocker. The mod is compatible and actually works very well with Combat Enhanced as well as Improved H2H, both of which give the weapon stats a use again. MWE's Air Attack mod is also compatible although I wouldn't recommend it due to the excessive strength bonuses you'll get during any air attack. However, I think looking into Air Attack's method of boosting - depending on how long you've been airborne - is worth looking into as it makes more sense to do more damage the higher you go into the air. (Imagine attacking someone with those 1000 acrobatic boosting scrolls outside of Seyda Neen!) Zooming Bows also seems perfectly compatible, although the endurance draining feature of this seems to move faster with that mod on. However, this seems to balance bow abuse that is otherwise pretty cheap.

I've been using Realistic Combat for a whole playthrough, and overall I like it a lot, but I've got a couple of comments (actually, one is a bug).

First, I agree with the previous posters that the knockback/stagger effect happens too frequently and out of context. It should be either impossible, or nearly impossible, for a rat or throwing star to stagger you, for example.

Second is the bug. For about a month I've been playing with a mysterious curse that includes 100% weakness to magicka and 1000% weakness to normal weapons, meaning that it's possible to get killed by a single lucky arrow shot from a mid-level NPC, or a guaranteed kill from a single shot or blow from a high-level NPC... if they're wielding weapons. I actually just went through GDR and killed Dagoth Ur, and enjoyed the challenge, though for a permanent curse I'd prefer a little less drastic penalty.

Anyway, the point is that I just tracked down the source of the curse, and it's CT_Fallen from this plugin. It's the penalty that gets applied when you're knocked down in combat. It's supposed to be removed as soon as your fatigue rises over 0, but the current check doesn't always work, apparently.

Nevermind franciscas, pilums, javelins...and I'm not even going to include slings. I'm not saying that maybe the throwing weapons in the mod could be tuned down, and I also agree that probably few people have been killed with say, throwing stars.

I like the idea of having a chance for a knockdown with a throwing weapon, as it would catch you off guard, especially if it hit you in the head. Also, the chance for a "critical strike" would be cool, too, as a knife to the chest or even shuriken to the throat would probably kill you dead pretty quick. But in general I think thrown weapons should do low damage, but more importantly have short range.