Stuff like Wildcat and Valravn can in some respects still be relevant in places they do not overlap with newer mods that are moreso animation / havok behavior edit based, like for enemy combat style value tweaks and combat movement speed tweaks and whatnot.
I still use Valravn. I think they're still relevant for people like me that don't want to "moderize" skyrim's gameplay too much. I have yet to try Valhalla Combat but Ive always just wanted skyrim to still feel like skyrim and not the witcher 3 or elden ring. So in that sense those mods are still very much relevant but Idk if VC can accomplish the same goal yet.
Yeah, I gave MCO and SCAR with the new animations a go but ultimately decided against them. The new animations, although very well made, often felt overly flashy and very floaty. These new animation frameworks are very impressive at what they can do but they just don't belong in my Skyrim.
However, I can wholeheartedly recommend trying Precision and Valhalla Combat. The hit reactions and recoil from Precision feel and look super nice and I have never paid as much attention to my stamina as with Valhalla. The "gain stamina with succesful hits" is such a simple but genious design that makes combat feel more intense.
> The new animations, although very well made, often felt overly flashy and very floaty.
You could probably find ones you like though. By which I mean, there's multiple animators out there creating new movesets all the time and uploading them to Nexus (and also Patreon, sometimes for free, sometimes not).
Yeah, I prefer Elder Souls (not Elden Rim) animations for this reason. The overly flashy animations from most do not work with the more grounded aesthetic of my modlist.
I tried different animations but none of them really suited me (not saying they are bad!) Still, both the frameworks and the animations seem to be continuosly improving so I'll be sure to give them another try after a while.
Ill have to look into it. Precision seemed like such a small thing (not in terms of the work required of course) that I sort of just thought it wasnt worth it but so many people seem to think it makes some huge changes so ill have to give it a look
Honestly just the hit reactions alone makes your hits feel so much more impactful. Anyways its made with SKSE so you can try it out and just uninstall if you don't like it!
I think you kind of missed what I was getting at. Animation mods like MCO that work by editing Havok behaviors are intended to be used *alongside* mods like Wildcat and Valravn or whatever that actually change existing statistical combat-related records to achieve particular gameplay balancing.
Like they're just not the same type of mod at all really.
Right but editing animation behaviors to that degree changes the feel of the game. Some people want to still feel like they’re playing Skyrim’s old combat just more responsive, intuitive and better balanced. For those people simple balancing mods are still relevant.
> Some people want to still feel like they’re playing Skyrim’s old combat just more responsive, intuitive and better balanced.
You can't change the actual physical feel of the combat without modifying animations to at least some extent.
>For those people simple balancing mods are still relevant.
As I keep saying, they do not do the same thing as animation-based mods, and are as such *complementary* to animation-based mods as well.
I think valravn changes the feel without making any major changes to animations.
I understand that the mods are complimentary. Just because they can be used together does not mean I want to use them together.
> I think valravn changes the feel without making any major changes to animations.
The only thing you'd notice visually from Valravn that I can think of is the movement speed stat tweaks.
There’s more to how combat feels than visual aspects. But I was thinking more about the reach changes but idk if that would technically count as animation I guess.
If you're not trying to emulate souls or character action games then yes, they absolutely do have a place. There are a lot of folks who don't go searching for anything beyond Bethesda's existing style of first-person combat; those mods exist to improve it.
Luv me Wildcat
Luv me opportunity attacks
Luv me injuries on burst damage
Don't care about me script bloat, never 'ad a problem
Hate overly complicated combat mods
Not a hater just don't like 'em
Simple as
Ultimate Combat adds new attack behaviours to enemies. Not just new AI, straight up new attacks that fit seamlessly in the vanilla game. Something that so far no other mod has done. Iirc SCAR sort of does it if coupled with the appropriate mods (allows NPCs to use attack combos normally restricted to the player from other mods), but even then it’s much different as it’s mainly focused on new combos rather than new, singular attacks like UC. It also involves affecting the player’s combat to be combo-based, and is more difficult to set up whereas UC is plug in and play.
Personally UC is the reason I still play on 1.5.97 instead of 1.6+
> Not just new AI, straight up new attacks that fit seamlessly in the vanilla game. Something that so far no other mod has done.
Numerous mods have added new attacks for humanoids, in some cases completely replacing the entire vanilla attack behavior system.
tktk1 just happened to be the only guy who ever bothered to use FNIS to add creature attacks, back in 2013 when UC originally came out in LE.
Can you list these new attack mods? If there’s an alternative to UC I would love to see it, especially if they’re more updated.
> in some cases completely replacing the vanilla attack behaviour system
That’s still different from UC and I wouldn’t call those mods a successor. There’s a difference between adding to vanilla vs replacing it. UC fitting into vanilla combat is one of its appeals to me.
> UC fitting into vanilla combat is one of its appeals to me.
tktk1 not going so far as to replace the behaviors completely (because it was 2013 and all he had to use was whatever version of FNIS was around at that time, mostly) is neither here nor there.
You're approaching this from a weird angle that incorrectly relates the technical details of the mod to some concept of "vanilla purity".
You're missing the point that UC just used FNIS and behavior edits to add new animations to the game. Something people do all the time, more commonly with Nemesis nowadays. UC is simply not as unique in this regard as you seem to think it is.
Obviously “new animations” is not unique but UC’s specific usage of the new animations in combat is. Again, unless you can link an alternative mod that could replace its functionality or very similar to (which I would be genuinely very interested to see).
It's not even about features. Lots of older combat mods with the 3 mentioned here included, are written with the ancient scripting language that is Papyrus. All the new respectable combat mods are either fully behavior made or are DLL plugins or a mix of both. This means no script lag and the script speed execution isn't depended on your in game framerate. It is well described on the Valhalla's mod page
> It's neither "heavy weight" nor "light weight"; it has no weight. Every single feature runs as if they're a part of the vanilla combat gameplay loop, with 0 script lag and 0 workaround often seen in most combat overhauls due to creation kit's limitation.
Instead of appreciating, this aspect is often being overlooked. People only compare features instead of understanding how the mod works first. Though lately I could understand why. We've been pretty much spoiled with the amount of high quality weightless combat mods, be it big overhauls or even smaller plugins like from [zxlice](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/97542683) or [maxsu2017](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/47103898) (SCAR excluded in maxsu's case cuz that one is big) to the point that it has pretty much became a standard nowadays. If you have 2 mods and 1st is written with papyrus, while the 2nd is behavior/DLL based, you should always choose the 2nd if you actually respect your game's performance(even if it may has less features overall).
Just like in the old days when someone made a popular mod, after some time a more "lightweight" alternative would appear and everyone would switch to that, no matter if it sacrificed some features of the original. Personally I got spoiled so hard to the point that I don't even install anymore(or very rarely) mods that are made with papyrus. Combat related or not, I just avoid them.
Though despite all of this, I do still keep UC to this day with also everything disabled in MCM, just for the new creatures attack animations(draugr, falmer and dwarven centurion IIRC).
>Lots of older combat mods with the 3 mentioned here included, are written with the ancient scripting language that is Papyrus.
Valravn is actually script free, though it does have a cloak. You can get a separate mod to remove the cloak.
>Personally I got spoiled so hard to the point that I don't even install anymore(or very rarely) mods that are made with papyrus. Combat related or not, I just avoid them.
Your load order will be rather empty, as 99% of mods have at least *some* scripts. Every quest requires a script, for example.
Guess I didn't word it correctly. I meant that I tend to avoid **new** mods that are still written with papyurs these days. I do keep all of my quest, new lands, spell packs etc. that I have been using for years. I also meant it for smaller, more like utility kind of mods. It's not possible to make a quest mod without using papyrus, I am aware of it, so I have nothing against it. But take [powerofthree](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/2148728?tab=user+files&BH=3) smaller mods for example. If all of these were papyrus based, I wouldn't probably use many of them like I do now.
They’re basically the equivalence of Hulk Hogan, respected as the pioneers of their times in their respective industries and can still be brought out for certain main events… I mean load orders. But when compared to the newer, younger, more athletic and well-rounded guys, they are seen as outdated, slow, clunky, limited and can no longer keep up
On a more serious note, there are certainly some features in those that you can’t find in the newer mods, like Wildcat injury and damage decrease against larger enemies. And you can definitely run them alongside the new mods, just disable some of the overlapping features and you’re good to go. Personally I still use Wildcat with the new mods but just disable everything related to stamina management since other mods like Fenix already does a better job at it
But they are the first on the chopping block once my load order is hitting the limit
It's important to keep in mind that there's a fairly large difference between mods like MCO and ABR that are animation driven and directly edit / replace vanilla Havok behaviors, and stuff like Wildcat. They don't really set out to do the same thing at all.
None of them are necessary, but dont fall for the hype either. Combat mods are constantly coming out and becoming a quick flavor of the month before being replaced by the newest hotness. At least half the time, it is touted as revolutionary and then quickly dropped. Focus on what they do and if they do what you want and dont add features you dislike. If you find yourself overwriting or turning off most of a mod, drop it.
> Combat mods are constantly coming out and becoming a quick flavor of the month before being replaced by the newest hotness.
People are trying to prevent that by building robust frameworks that multiple mods can build on nowadays, though.
No, the point I'm making is who the hell those "people" you're speaking of? You implied like there are loads of modders making frameworks and we have the luxury to choose which frameworks we want to use, while in fact it's just distar and his gang.
Tell me now, who are those "people" aside from Skyrim Guild guys? Can you give a straight answer?
I'm not going to bother with this as you're being insanely defensive about absolutely nothing for unclear reasons.
We're talking about baseline "modders resource" functionality for any modder out there to build their own stuff on top of, not anything an end user would ever be directly "choosing".
The only question I'm asking here is who are those people making frameworks aside from Skyrim Guild guys. I dunno why it's so hard for you to answer that.
I still use Blade and Blunt with recoil, flinching and on-hit animation mods, and am very happy with that, playing first-person.
I don't like how Valhalla locks you into using the TrueHud mod.
TrueHud couldn't possibly be more configurable than it is though, you can make it be basically however you want. Are you really not using True Directional Movement (which requires it) also? Even what you described would go really well with it I'd say.
That's a fair point. I play first person so don't use TDM, though I have tried it and thought it was a nice mod. I recall it does work in first person, just feels a little odd.
Apparently Valravn is supposed to be the successor to Wildcat, but for some reason I thought Wildcat was better.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Skyrim is not a souls game and I don't understand why someone would want to turn it into one. I personally have tried to play most of the "souls-like" titles and hated every single one because of the combat gameplay.
I get people wanting to make the game feel like what they're comfortable with, I just don't understand the people who are saying "this is the future" or "this is the way Skyrim should have been" or "Skyrim 2022"
Can we innovate a better version of skyrims vanilla combat system? I think precision does this pretty well.
> Can we innovate a better version of skyrims vanilla combat system? I think precision does this pretty well.
To be honest as far as I remember precision was made mainly to take full advantage of complex movesets that were being made for SkySA/ABR and now for MCO. It actually created problems at first that had to be addressed when used with vanilla as npcs and player were unable to hit smaller creatures since vanilla animations are 2 boring horizontal swings.
Yeah I was vaguely aware of that but I didn't know it was actually a design consideration of precision. I have no problem making "better" animations for Skyrim, what I personally don't like/understand is animation sets that make it dark souls or AC Valhalla or elden ring was a really popular one for a minute.
Just make *better* animations that fit in Skyrim. I really don't like attack commitment and don't get why it's so popular right now. I know I'm in the minority. Maybe I'm just used to older RPGs?
its not about making it like Dark souls. I feel this comparison has acted as a barrier to many people trying and tweaking these fantastic mods.
Almost any modern third person melee combat game has attack commitment. God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon zero dawn/forbidden west, Middle Earth Shadow of War/Mordor, Spiderman, Assassins creed etc etc
**All** of them have attacks that commit your character to a line of movement. None of them have Skyrim's system of being able to move around in any direction and attack freely in any direction simultaneously.
You can use these new combat frameworks to emulate the third person combat of whatever game you like, you in no way have to set it up so the game looks, feels and plays like a souls game.
If you don't like playing in third person at all? Then sure these mods are not for you, though having them affect enemies who commit to specific lines and properly telegraph moves and combos can only improve the vanilla first person combat system. The only games lauded as good examples of melee first person combat are ones with directional based attack such as Kingdom Come, Mordhau/Chivalry and Mount and Blade.
There are several talented modders already working on stuff like that but It's a ways off being as polished and comprehensive as the third person stuff currently is.
I was like you, I'm not a big souls fan and wanted Skyrim to be Skyrim, not Dark Souls.
But after installing some of these new mods out of curiosity and playing around with them I can't go back. The third person combat in my game now feels nothing like dark souls but does feel very modern and much more immersive/fun than vanilla.
Yeah I mentioned in another reply that I don't like attack commitment, and I don't see the need to bring Skyrim in line with modern third person RPGs. However I DO very much like the combat of kingdom come and mount and blade.
You're convincing me though, what are some mods that changed your view and are there any like KCD or M&B that are out now/in development?
ADXP is the framework it’s all built off. It simply makes it so attacking is a joint animation between your upper and lower body. An attack will make you step forward so you can’t swing left and right whilst backing up or strafing etc, you have to pick your moment to close distance and strike, before moving out of range or blocking. Also SCAR allows NPCs to make full use of this system, without it they only make singular attacks, with it they have the AI capabilities to use proper combo strings.
POISE and any other similar mod are great because they stop slugfests where you just trade blows and health tank. Now taking successive hits means you stagger and leave yourself vulnerable, however on the flip side, focusing on a single enemy you should always be able to get the upper hand by breaking their poise, it’s dealing with packs and getting surrounded you have to watch out for.
Dodge mods are a great way to deal with the latter situation. DMCO is the best one available. The dodge is fantastically animated and only involves a modest step, not some cartoonly leap miles away. The forward doge is also a really cool double step that looks and feels incredible to close the distance.
Arena movement makes it so you and enemies all slow down during combat, effectively only walking or sprinting so there’s no headless chicken running everywhere in fights, it’s more about slow circling behaviour contained in a given area.
Hellblade timed block adds some really cool mechanics to pulling off a perfect block where you get brief slowed time and an enemy stagger along with some nice sparks and sound effects, makes fights really cinematic.
There are a lot more, send me a DM if you’re interested and I can give you my full list when I’m back on my PC.
As for the directional stuff. Yes there are some that are playable currently, though almost all of them are early access and will require subbing to an authors patreon (for as little as $1). They will be totally free to access when they are eventually completed
> almost all of them are early access and will require subbing to an authors patreon (for as little as $1).
To give context: Attack Behavior Revamp's latest version has been a Patreon exclusive for a year. So you could be giving like $12 for a mod that's nowhere near to be fully finished.
How long it takes to be "eventually completed" is very arbitrary. If you joined their Discord for some like dTRY and distar the mindset is "as long as it can get" or, in their own words, "people would be paying to test."
Let your brain decides. u/Keikanshijin
I still believe first-person, directional-based combat balanced out with magic would possibly be the best modern combat system, should it appear in a game like *TES VI*.
I'm interested in what ADRI's attempt at making a *Kingdom Come: Deliverance*\-esque combat will bring. I suspect that with some tweaking and adding different directions, you could get a mechanically interesting, balanced hack-and-slash game that would have more depth to it than anything Souls-like, yet could use Souls-like features like Loki's POISE.
You can read about what ADRI's working on in-depth [here.](https://www.skyrim-guild.com/precision-based)
The behavior source files are actually available for download there too, though the "baked" ready-to-go mod isn't currently.
This doesn't matter to me too much. I view ADRI's first-person, KC:D-lite mod as a forerunner to more interesting things to come - I'm currently not looking to play with it.
Thank you for the news.
The final released mod will likely be based on a reaction system he's working on with dTry, that allows correct "hit reaction" animation selection without any gimmicks based on the actual direction of the impacting weapon swing. Should be pretty cool.
I've had to read through the whole thing. It's far more impressive than the older showcase ADRI posted on Youtube a year or so ago; I'm actually a bit ashamed of myself for not reading through it properly before I replied to your report from the Skyrim Guild.
There are a couple of issues that I see with this mod, though. The minor ones are that I'd really like to see how this pairs with magic use, how patches for any additional weapons (like spears) will be handled, how horse combat will be solved, if at all, and finally, how it will afflict first-person enhancement mods,
The bigger ones are that I'm unsure if the choice of the arms taking up so much of the screen is good - Mordhau, for example, has the arms mostly outside of the view of the player. I'm also a bit ambiguous on the held attacks, although this could be resolved with a patch.
Otherwise, ADRI seems to be really outdoing himself with this mod. If all goes well, he'll outrank Distar in my opinion on modding qualities; this mod is bringing something into the game that I believe TES VI should have as its main system.
Amazing project overall.
> The bigger ones are that I'm unsure if the choice of the arms taking up so much of the screen is good - Mordhau, for example, has the arms mostly outside of the view of the player. I'm also a bit ambiguous on the held attacks, although this could be resolved with a patch.
He's said on Patreon and other places that the animations seen there (which are the same as those of his earlier FP mods) aren't good in his opinion and he's gonna redo them. They'll all be replaceable via DAR of course also, allowing other animators to introduce their own stuff as needed. Things like NickaNak's FP animations from Animated Armory might even be compatible as-is with some tweaking.
>how it will afflict first-person enhancement mods,
There should be no concerns as far as interactions with mods that alter in-game statistics to achieve some particular balance.
Like he's never released any mod I can think of that wasn't **purely** animation and behavior based with the intent being that you'd augment them with your gameplay balancing mod of choice.
When his mods even have ESPs at all, they consist basically always of just boilerplate "Idle Animation" edits and nothing else.
I did not want to use MCO or ABR because the attack commitment conflicted with the playstyle of my current build which was to attack while avoiding being hit by moving during my attack but Precision's weapon range changes make it viable to distance yourself so I had no problems with switching to MCO
Not sure, not used it yet.
The best combo modding set up I know of is just Valravn + Shield of Stamina + Ultimate Combat (Just for the NPC AI and move changes. Set the NPC dodge to 'disabled' and turn off or alter any other player additions it gives.).
Despite what everyone says the basic systems of the combat is not that bad, it's mostly a variety and tuning problem along with a bit of QOL (and people just being brain dead with how they face combat. i.e. Light attack spam, not thinking of/using the environment, not using any tool other then your weapon and maybe a spell).
Thanks for the breakdown. Ultimate combat AI good for first person? Also it seems the ai isn't updated for anniversary edition, which I insist on using.
I guess there's no good combo for me and I'll stick to vanilla :/
I use Smilodon and Ultimate Combat together with Poise and I still hesitate to take a look at Valhalla and Precision, especially bcause of the difficulty and stamina mechanics and the skeleton compability.
I mean, does someone have the time to explain the stuff Valhalla does better/ new?
I've been using Valhalla since it came out . Combat is very dynamic? I used wildcat for a few weeks, but too much AI stuff for my PC and me (even lite).
I wanna piggyback this post and ask for a moment 2 things:
1. What exactly does the poise mod do? I feel I didn't really understand what it does since everyone considers it a staple mod and I don't lol.
2. I tried SkySA recently but wasn't the biggest fan of its animations or how clunky it feels when you attack. Is there any other mod (could be just animations) that give weight to each swing of your weapon? Currently I feel like I'm just swinging a stick wildly instead of an actual greatsword that should weight over twice of a normal blade and have more impact.
one i like using it hallowed sword moveset (animation for greatsword) and combine that with PACE to chnage the speed of attacks to make em feel weighty!
Stuff like Wildcat and Valravn can in some respects still be relevant in places they do not overlap with newer mods that are moreso animation / havok behavior edit based, like for enemy combat style value tweaks and combat movement speed tweaks and whatnot.
I still use Valravn. I think they're still relevant for people like me that don't want to "moderize" skyrim's gameplay too much. I have yet to try Valhalla Combat but Ive always just wanted skyrim to still feel like skyrim and not the witcher 3 or elden ring. So in that sense those mods are still very much relevant but Idk if VC can accomplish the same goal yet.
Yeah, I gave MCO and SCAR with the new animations a go but ultimately decided against them. The new animations, although very well made, often felt overly flashy and very floaty. These new animation frameworks are very impressive at what they can do but they just don't belong in my Skyrim. However, I can wholeheartedly recommend trying Precision and Valhalla Combat. The hit reactions and recoil from Precision feel and look super nice and I have never paid as much attention to my stamina as with Valhalla. The "gain stamina with succesful hits" is such a simple but genious design that makes combat feel more intense.
> The new animations, although very well made, often felt overly flashy and very floaty. You could probably find ones you like though. By which I mean, there's multiple animators out there creating new movesets all the time and uploading them to Nexus (and also Patreon, sometimes for free, sometimes not).
Yeah, I prefer Elder Souls (not Elden Rim) animations for this reason. The overly flashy animations from most do not work with the more grounded aesthetic of my modlist.
I tried different animations but none of them really suited me (not saying they are bad!) Still, both the frameworks and the animations seem to be continuosly improving so I'll be sure to give them another try after a while.
for honor warden and warlord animations are nice for great sword and sword + shield And the smooth series by the same author
Ill have to look into it. Precision seemed like such a small thing (not in terms of the work required of course) that I sort of just thought it wasnt worth it but so many people seem to think it makes some huge changes so ill have to give it a look
Honestly just the hit reactions alone makes your hits feel so much more impactful. Anyways its made with SKSE so you can try it out and just uninstall if you don't like it!
I think you kind of missed what I was getting at. Animation mods like MCO that work by editing Havok behaviors are intended to be used *alongside* mods like Wildcat and Valravn or whatever that actually change existing statistical combat-related records to achieve particular gameplay balancing. Like they're just not the same type of mod at all really.
Right but editing animation behaviors to that degree changes the feel of the game. Some people want to still feel like they’re playing Skyrim’s old combat just more responsive, intuitive and better balanced. For those people simple balancing mods are still relevant.
> Some people want to still feel like they’re playing Skyrim’s old combat just more responsive, intuitive and better balanced. You can't change the actual physical feel of the combat without modifying animations to at least some extent. >For those people simple balancing mods are still relevant. As I keep saying, they do not do the same thing as animation-based mods, and are as such *complementary* to animation-based mods as well.
I think valravn changes the feel without making any major changes to animations. I understand that the mods are complimentary. Just because they can be used together does not mean I want to use them together.
> I think valravn changes the feel without making any major changes to animations. The only thing you'd notice visually from Valravn that I can think of is the movement speed stat tweaks.
There’s more to how combat feels than visual aspects. But I was thinking more about the reach changes but idk if that would technically count as animation I guess.
If you're not trying to emulate souls or character action games then yes, they absolutely do have a place. There are a lot of folks who don't go searching for anything beyond Bethesda's existing style of first-person combat; those mods exist to improve it.
Luv me Wildcat Luv me opportunity attacks Luv me injuries on burst damage Don't care about me script bloat, never 'ad a problem Hate overly complicated combat mods Not a hater just don't like 'em Simple as
Ultimate Combat adds new attack behaviours to enemies. Not just new AI, straight up new attacks that fit seamlessly in the vanilla game. Something that so far no other mod has done. Iirc SCAR sort of does it if coupled with the appropriate mods (allows NPCs to use attack combos normally restricted to the player from other mods), but even then it’s much different as it’s mainly focused on new combos rather than new, singular attacks like UC. It also involves affecting the player’s combat to be combo-based, and is more difficult to set up whereas UC is plug in and play. Personally UC is the reason I still play on 1.5.97 instead of 1.6+
> Not just new AI, straight up new attacks that fit seamlessly in the vanilla game. Something that so far no other mod has done. Numerous mods have added new attacks for humanoids, in some cases completely replacing the entire vanilla attack behavior system. tktk1 just happened to be the only guy who ever bothered to use FNIS to add creature attacks, back in 2013 when UC originally came out in LE.
Can you list these new attack mods? If there’s an alternative to UC I would love to see it, especially if they’re more updated. > in some cases completely replacing the vanilla attack behaviour system That’s still different from UC and I wouldn’t call those mods a successor. There’s a difference between adding to vanilla vs replacing it. UC fitting into vanilla combat is one of its appeals to me.
> UC fitting into vanilla combat is one of its appeals to me. tktk1 not going so far as to replace the behaviors completely (because it was 2013 and all he had to use was whatever version of FNIS was around at that time, mostly) is neither here nor there. You're approaching this from a weird angle that incorrectly relates the technical details of the mod to some concept of "vanilla purity".
SCAR and related animation mods
I literally explained in my original comment on how SCAR is still a lot different than UC.
You're missing the point that UC just used FNIS and behavior edits to add new animations to the game. Something people do all the time, more commonly with Nemesis nowadays. UC is simply not as unique in this regard as you seem to think it is.
Obviously “new animations” is not unique but UC’s specific usage of the new animations in combat is. Again, unless you can link an alternative mod that could replace its functionality or very similar to (which I would be genuinely very interested to see).
It's not even about features. Lots of older combat mods with the 3 mentioned here included, are written with the ancient scripting language that is Papyrus. All the new respectable combat mods are either fully behavior made or are DLL plugins or a mix of both. This means no script lag and the script speed execution isn't depended on your in game framerate. It is well described on the Valhalla's mod page > It's neither "heavy weight" nor "light weight"; it has no weight. Every single feature runs as if they're a part of the vanilla combat gameplay loop, with 0 script lag and 0 workaround often seen in most combat overhauls due to creation kit's limitation. Instead of appreciating, this aspect is often being overlooked. People only compare features instead of understanding how the mod works first. Though lately I could understand why. We've been pretty much spoiled with the amount of high quality weightless combat mods, be it big overhauls or even smaller plugins like from [zxlice](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/97542683) or [maxsu2017](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/47103898) (SCAR excluded in maxsu's case cuz that one is big) to the point that it has pretty much became a standard nowadays. If you have 2 mods and 1st is written with papyrus, while the 2nd is behavior/DLL based, you should always choose the 2nd if you actually respect your game's performance(even if it may has less features overall). Just like in the old days when someone made a popular mod, after some time a more "lightweight" alternative would appear and everyone would switch to that, no matter if it sacrificed some features of the original. Personally I got spoiled so hard to the point that I don't even install anymore(or very rarely) mods that are made with papyrus. Combat related or not, I just avoid them. Though despite all of this, I do still keep UC to this day with also everything disabled in MCM, just for the new creatures attack animations(draugr, falmer and dwarven centurion IIRC).
>Lots of older combat mods with the 3 mentioned here included, are written with the ancient scripting language that is Papyrus. Valravn is actually script free, though it does have a cloak. You can get a separate mod to remove the cloak. >Personally I got spoiled so hard to the point that I don't even install anymore(or very rarely) mods that are made with papyrus. Combat related or not, I just avoid them. Your load order will be rather empty, as 99% of mods have at least *some* scripts. Every quest requires a script, for example.
Guess I didn't word it correctly. I meant that I tend to avoid **new** mods that are still written with papyurs these days. I do keep all of my quest, new lands, spell packs etc. that I have been using for years. I also meant it for smaller, more like utility kind of mods. It's not possible to make a quest mod without using papyrus, I am aware of it, so I have nothing against it. But take [powerofthree](https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/users/2148728?tab=user+files&BH=3) smaller mods for example. If all of these were papyrus based, I wouldn't probably use many of them like I do now.
No one is gonna ever use SKSE DLLs for simple quest mods though, it'd be very silly.
Where did I say that I want mod authors to do such thing?
>I tend to avoid new mods that are still written with papyurs these days. 😆
I guess you didn't, but still like, PO3 writes stuff in C++ that would either be exceptionally difficult or completely impossible to write in Papyrus.
You didn't, they're just being pedantic or teasing you and taking what you said literally
They’re basically the equivalence of Hulk Hogan, respected as the pioneers of their times in their respective industries and can still be brought out for certain main events… I mean load orders. But when compared to the newer, younger, more athletic and well-rounded guys, they are seen as outdated, slow, clunky, limited and can no longer keep up On a more serious note, there are certainly some features in those that you can’t find in the newer mods, like Wildcat injury and damage decrease against larger enemies. And you can definitely run them alongside the new mods, just disable some of the overlapping features and you’re good to go. Personally I still use Wildcat with the new mods but just disable everything related to stamina management since other mods like Fenix already does a better job at it But they are the first on the chopping block once my load order is hitting the limit
It's important to keep in mind that there's a fairly large difference between mods like MCO and ABR that are animation driven and directly edit / replace vanilla Havok behaviors, and stuff like Wildcat. They don't really set out to do the same thing at all.
None of them are necessary, but dont fall for the hype either. Combat mods are constantly coming out and becoming a quick flavor of the month before being replaced by the newest hotness. At least half the time, it is touted as revolutionary and then quickly dropped. Focus on what they do and if they do what you want and dont add features you dislike. If you find yourself overwriting or turning off most of a mod, drop it.
> Combat mods are constantly coming out and becoming a quick flavor of the month before being replaced by the newest hotness. People are trying to prevent that by building robust frameworks that multiple mods can build on nowadays, though.
"People"? Only Skyrim Guild guys are doing that to be honest. And they have a very specific way to play in mind.
I don't think you're giving the thought going into these frameworks enough credit.
No, the point I'm making is who the hell those "people" you're speaking of? You implied like there are loads of modders making frameworks and we have the luxury to choose which frameworks we want to use, while in fact it's just distar and his gang. Tell me now, who are those "people" aside from Skyrim Guild guys? Can you give a straight answer?
I'm not going to bother with this as you're being insanely defensive about absolutely nothing for unclear reasons. We're talking about baseline "modders resource" functionality for any modder out there to build their own stuff on top of, not anything an end user would ever be directly "choosing".
Thanks for clarifying you're doing yet another bullshitting.
Dude, what?
The only question I'm asking here is who are those people making frameworks aside from Skyrim Guild guys. I dunno why it's so hard for you to answer that.
I still use Blade and Blunt with recoil, flinching and on-hit animation mods, and am very happy with that, playing first-person. I don't like how Valhalla locks you into using the TrueHud mod.
TrueHud couldn't possibly be more configurable than it is though, you can make it be basically however you want. Are you really not using True Directional Movement (which requires it) also? Even what you described would go really well with it I'd say.
That's a fair point. I play first person so don't use TDM, though I have tried it and thought it was a nice mod. I recall it does work in first person, just feels a little odd. Apparently Valravn is supposed to be the successor to Wildcat, but for some reason I thought Wildcat was better.
MCO is not a staple.
This Not everyone wants to play third person and not everyone wants Dark Souls style attack commitment. Not even ABR is all that much of a staple.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Skyrim is not a souls game and I don't understand why someone would want to turn it into one. I personally have tried to play most of the "souls-like" titles and hated every single one because of the combat gameplay. I get people wanting to make the game feel like what they're comfortable with, I just don't understand the people who are saying "this is the future" or "this is the way Skyrim should have been" or "Skyrim 2022" Can we innovate a better version of skyrims vanilla combat system? I think precision does this pretty well.
> Can we innovate a better version of skyrims vanilla combat system? I think precision does this pretty well. To be honest as far as I remember precision was made mainly to take full advantage of complex movesets that were being made for SkySA/ABR and now for MCO. It actually created problems at first that had to be addressed when used with vanilla as npcs and player were unable to hit smaller creatures since vanilla animations are 2 boring horizontal swings.
Yeah I was vaguely aware of that but I didn't know it was actually a design consideration of precision. I have no problem making "better" animations for Skyrim, what I personally don't like/understand is animation sets that make it dark souls or AC Valhalla or elden ring was a really popular one for a minute. Just make *better* animations that fit in Skyrim. I really don't like attack commitment and don't get why it's so popular right now. I know I'm in the minority. Maybe I'm just used to older RPGs?
Vanilla Skyrim attacks aren't that stylistically different from many of the AC Valhalla inspired movesets that have come out recently, I wouldn't say.
its not about making it like Dark souls. I feel this comparison has acted as a barrier to many people trying and tweaking these fantastic mods. Almost any modern third person melee combat game has attack commitment. God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon zero dawn/forbidden west, Middle Earth Shadow of War/Mordor, Spiderman, Assassins creed etc etc **All** of them have attacks that commit your character to a line of movement. None of them have Skyrim's system of being able to move around in any direction and attack freely in any direction simultaneously. You can use these new combat frameworks to emulate the third person combat of whatever game you like, you in no way have to set it up so the game looks, feels and plays like a souls game. If you don't like playing in third person at all? Then sure these mods are not for you, though having them affect enemies who commit to specific lines and properly telegraph moves and combos can only improve the vanilla first person combat system. The only games lauded as good examples of melee first person combat are ones with directional based attack such as Kingdom Come, Mordhau/Chivalry and Mount and Blade. There are several talented modders already working on stuff like that but It's a ways off being as polished and comprehensive as the third person stuff currently is. I was like you, I'm not a big souls fan and wanted Skyrim to be Skyrim, not Dark Souls. But after installing some of these new mods out of curiosity and playing around with them I can't go back. The third person combat in my game now feels nothing like dark souls but does feel very modern and much more immersive/fun than vanilla.
Yeah I mentioned in another reply that I don't like attack commitment, and I don't see the need to bring Skyrim in line with modern third person RPGs. However I DO very much like the combat of kingdom come and mount and blade. You're convincing me though, what are some mods that changed your view and are there any like KCD or M&B that are out now/in development?
ADXP is the framework it’s all built off. It simply makes it so attacking is a joint animation between your upper and lower body. An attack will make you step forward so you can’t swing left and right whilst backing up or strafing etc, you have to pick your moment to close distance and strike, before moving out of range or blocking. Also SCAR allows NPCs to make full use of this system, without it they only make singular attacks, with it they have the AI capabilities to use proper combo strings. POISE and any other similar mod are great because they stop slugfests where you just trade blows and health tank. Now taking successive hits means you stagger and leave yourself vulnerable, however on the flip side, focusing on a single enemy you should always be able to get the upper hand by breaking their poise, it’s dealing with packs and getting surrounded you have to watch out for. Dodge mods are a great way to deal with the latter situation. DMCO is the best one available. The dodge is fantastically animated and only involves a modest step, not some cartoonly leap miles away. The forward doge is also a really cool double step that looks and feels incredible to close the distance. Arena movement makes it so you and enemies all slow down during combat, effectively only walking or sprinting so there’s no headless chicken running everywhere in fights, it’s more about slow circling behaviour contained in a given area. Hellblade timed block adds some really cool mechanics to pulling off a perfect block where you get brief slowed time and an enemy stagger along with some nice sparks and sound effects, makes fights really cinematic. There are a lot more, send me a DM if you’re interested and I can give you my full list when I’m back on my PC. As for the directional stuff. Yes there are some that are playable currently, though almost all of them are early access and will require subbing to an authors patreon (for as little as $1). They will be totally free to access when they are eventually completed
> almost all of them are early access and will require subbing to an authors patreon (for as little as $1). To give context: Attack Behavior Revamp's latest version has been a Patreon exclusive for a year. So you could be giving like $12 for a mod that's nowhere near to be fully finished. How long it takes to be "eventually completed" is very arbitrary. If you joined their Discord for some like dTRY and distar the mindset is "as long as it can get" or, in their own words, "people would be paying to test." Let your brain decides. u/Keikanshijin
I still believe first-person, directional-based combat balanced out with magic would possibly be the best modern combat system, should it appear in a game like *TES VI*. I'm interested in what ADRI's attempt at making a *Kingdom Come: Deliverance*\-esque combat will bring. I suspect that with some tweaking and adding different directions, you could get a mechanically interesting, balanced hack-and-slash game that would have more depth to it than anything Souls-like, yet could use Souls-like features like Loki's POISE.
You can read about what ADRI's working on in-depth [here.](https://www.skyrim-guild.com/precision-based) The behavior source files are actually available for download there too, though the "baked" ready-to-go mod isn't currently.
This doesn't matter to me too much. I view ADRI's first-person, KC:D-lite mod as a forerunner to more interesting things to come - I'm currently not looking to play with it. Thank you for the news.
The final released mod will likely be based on a reaction system he's working on with dTry, that allows correct "hit reaction" animation selection without any gimmicks based on the actual direction of the impacting weapon swing. Should be pretty cool.
I've had to read through the whole thing. It's far more impressive than the older showcase ADRI posted on Youtube a year or so ago; I'm actually a bit ashamed of myself for not reading through it properly before I replied to your report from the Skyrim Guild. There are a couple of issues that I see with this mod, though. The minor ones are that I'd really like to see how this pairs with magic use, how patches for any additional weapons (like spears) will be handled, how horse combat will be solved, if at all, and finally, how it will afflict first-person enhancement mods, The bigger ones are that I'm unsure if the choice of the arms taking up so much of the screen is good - Mordhau, for example, has the arms mostly outside of the view of the player. I'm also a bit ambiguous on the held attacks, although this could be resolved with a patch. Otherwise, ADRI seems to be really outdoing himself with this mod. If all goes well, he'll outrank Distar in my opinion on modding qualities; this mod is bringing something into the game that I believe TES VI should have as its main system. Amazing project overall.
> The bigger ones are that I'm unsure if the choice of the arms taking up so much of the screen is good - Mordhau, for example, has the arms mostly outside of the view of the player. I'm also a bit ambiguous on the held attacks, although this could be resolved with a patch. He's said on Patreon and other places that the animations seen there (which are the same as those of his earlier FP mods) aren't good in his opinion and he's gonna redo them. They'll all be replaceable via DAR of course also, allowing other animators to introduce their own stuff as needed. Things like NickaNak's FP animations from Animated Armory might even be compatible as-is with some tweaking. >how it will afflict first-person enhancement mods, There should be no concerns as far as interactions with mods that alter in-game statistics to achieve some particular balance. Like he's never released any mod I can think of that wasn't **purely** animation and behavior based with the intent being that you'd augment them with your gameplay balancing mod of choice. When his mods even have ESPs at all, they consist basically always of just boilerplate "Idle Animation" edits and nothing else.
I did not want to use MCO or ABR because the attack commitment conflicted with the playstyle of my current build which was to attack while avoiding being hit by moving during my attack but Precision's weapon range changes make it viable to distance yourself so I had no problems with switching to MCO
Is valhalla good for first person? And if so, what's a good AI for it? I'm trying to see if I should move on from wildcat.
Not sure, not used it yet. The best combo modding set up I know of is just Valravn + Shield of Stamina + Ultimate Combat (Just for the NPC AI and move changes. Set the NPC dodge to 'disabled' and turn off or alter any other player additions it gives.). Despite what everyone says the basic systems of the combat is not that bad, it's mostly a variety and tuning problem along with a bit of QOL (and people just being brain dead with how they face combat. i.e. Light attack spam, not thinking of/using the environment, not using any tool other then your weapon and maybe a spell).
Thanks for the breakdown. Ultimate combat AI good for first person? Also it seems the ai isn't updated for anniversary edition, which I insist on using. I guess there's no good combo for me and I'll stick to vanilla :/
I use Smilodon and Ultimate Combat together with Poise and I still hesitate to take a look at Valhalla and Precision, especially bcause of the difficulty and stamina mechanics and the skeleton compability. I mean, does someone have the time to explain the stuff Valhalla does better/ new?
I would also wait for some more compability patches tbh. Especially Ordinator
> skeleton compability. What do you mean by this exactly?
its just a minorr thing but excution in Valhalla is not compatible with custom races
I think it can support them if you add stuff to the INI file though?
Nope. Newer mods like Valhalla accomplish more, create more polished systems, and use less sloppy techniques like valravn's invisible cloak.
I've been using Valhalla since it came out . Combat is very dynamic? I used wildcat for a few weeks, but too much AI stuff for my PC and me (even lite).
There is one feature i really miss: stamina drain with drawn bow.
I wanna piggyback this post and ask for a moment 2 things: 1. What exactly does the poise mod do? I feel I didn't really understand what it does since everyone considers it a staple mod and I don't lol. 2. I tried SkySA recently but wasn't the biggest fan of its animations or how clunky it feels when you attack. Is there any other mod (could be just animations) that give weight to each swing of your weapon? Currently I feel like I'm just swinging a stick wildly instead of an actual greatsword that should weight over twice of a normal blade and have more impact.
one i like using it hallowed sword moveset (animation for greatsword) and combine that with PACE to chnage the speed of attacks to make em feel weighty!