i tried reproducing the behavior i encountered before and had a hard time doing it but was able to. i think the issue is that it happens on certain situations wherein the shaking animation gets stuck. i was able to reproduce it by being staggered when an npc used a spell on me, frostbite or lightning bolt not sure, and was able to kill the npc at the next instant. also drinking potions or being staggered again through being struck by arrows stopped the shaking. being struck by arrows alone or being attack melee did not produced this shaking. this was tested using ur esp version 2.50
testing using version 2.55, i had a hard time to reproduce the issue, but it did show up one time but was negated by arrow shots.
anyways, since it's temporary and really very hard to reproduce using ur latest mod, i thank you for this great mod. hopefully u can still improve on this mod mostly on the npc perk addition.
downloaded and endorsed.

The game setting ''fCombatDistance'' for melee attacks and ''fCombatBashReach'' for bashing. The first setting is not the final distance which weapons reach, but it's also multiplied by the character's size (so taller races can swing further) and the stats of a weapon itself (daggers can't swing as far as greatswords)

I wanted to let you know, I fiddled around with v2.5 and discovered that the duration of the stagger does not actually affect how often you can stagger/be staggered.

So, I was able to fix that by adding a condition to each stagger effect that allowed the stagger to only occur if it weren't already on a creature. For example, for DCAttackStagger, I added the Conditon: HasMagicEffect StaggerPushFFAimed == 0 to the effect StaggerPushFFAimed.

With that in place it turns out the duration of 2 seconds is actually just right for my preferences.

Actually the spell duration does affect how often you can be staggered by my mod. A variation of those conditions u mentioned (using the keyword I added to my magic effects specifically for the anti-spam) is used inside the scripts already. This means that an enemy attacking you a couple of times won't stagger spam you, but if he hits and follows up with a bash he will be able to stagger a second time (which imo is the way it should be, because otherwise he'd have bashed for no reason at all)

Maybe I did something wrong, but I set the duration for all 3 stagger spells to 8, and I was still able to freeze an enemy in place by hitting him over and over.

But yeah, the system works well with bashes.

Will there be further adjustments to combat range for creatures? A troll, for example, still has an attack range that extends beyond its arms.

Any chances for mounted combat? Thanks in advance.

I could do it, but am hesitant to do so because I'm sure there will be large, popular overhaul mods in the future, and they typically edit all creatures. If I'd edit those creatures myself my mod would conflict with all mods changing those same creatures


Not from me I'm afraid, I know way too little about animations to be able to pull something like that off I'll join you in hoping someone else will pull it off though

So I gues I was just so wrapped up in enjoying your mod that I never realized that the Shield Wall perks for Blocking are kinda pointless now. Any ideas of what (if anything) you're going to do with them?

Hmm not sure.. should do something with them, but dunno what

A nice paralelism would be to make them reduce the amount of fatigue consumed by blocking. Think about it:
In vanilla Skyrim, blocking still damages your health bar and the perks are useful to mitigate this effect
In your mod, blocking damages the fatigue bar so the perks should be useful to mitigate this effect as well.

Hmm I think that should be doable.. I like the idea

Hey, just thought I'd give a little update on 2 common complaints I've been getting concerning staggering, and my progress on dealing with them:

1) On higher difficulty levels when enemies are able to kill you in a couple hits, a combination of normal attack stagger + bash + maybe a second normal attack stagger still results in player getting stagger-locked. I'm reverting bashes to their vanilla behaviour when used on the player (or try to find a way to have them interrupt quickly but not too long a stagger anymore)

2) Enemies can still get stagger-spammed too easily. This COULD easily be ''fixed'' by making the cooldown even longer, but that'd just dumb combat down and make it back to boring vanilla, so that's not the way to go. I've now managed a way to shorten stagger duration on enemies and I CAN make them block as a reaction to being staggered. Right now they just follow staggers with a block 100% of the time, but that's just proof of concept. Before releasing new version I'll give them chances to block based on their block skill etc, and if I manage I'll maybe also give them other options (thinking of for example a quick step backwards if they're not wearing heavy armor, that kind of thing)

New version when it's out will also come with a couple more bugfixes and an added effect to Shield Wall perks (they'll reduce stamina cost of blocking in addition to their current effect, because their current effect isn't very much noticeable anymore with the overall more powerful blocking from this mod)

oh what am I seeing? Two of my ideas got implemented? That was a bold move Borgut, now you will have me here proposing stuff even more often than before! (xDDD)

Not ''got implemented'', but ''got kind of implemented as a test to see if it'll work and are planned to be fully implemented''

How is the damage calculation supposed to work vs power attacks, giants, etc? I started a new character on Master difficulty and am getting rocked pretty hard even when blocking. I can't be sure because my new character doesn't have the Quick Reflexes block perk, but it even seems that regular attacks are doing some damage. I can also kill NPCs who are blocking using only regular attacks. I am using the extra damage option too btw.

Well that sounds about correct, blocking still doesn't reduce damage taken by 100%, exactly because imo for example a giant should be able to hurt you even when blocking. It's just much more effective than it was in vanilla.

Good to hear. Playing on my higher level character on Expert, it seemed like I was blocking near 100% of lower NPCs damage, and I was worried that my game was broken after installing a bunch of other mods and restarting on Master. Nope. Just me. I am glad to see how well the game scales under Deadly Combat too.

I'm using this mod in conjunction with PISE, which also has a few combat tweaks. I load PISE second, but everything seems to be working alright. Just wondering if there's any major things that would break by using the two together. I like that PISE adds a bunch of stuff outside of combat too.

Some people have reported weird AI behaviour from Giants (sometimes they won't attack). This is an issue related to one specific game setting change though (a setting which controls the distance at which melee attacks can hit) and this conflict also arises with other mods which affect this setting in combination with PISE. You can use the DeadlyCombat_NoAttackDistance.esp plugin which comes with this mod (load it after DeadlyCombat.esp) to fix the issue though.. you'll miss out on 2 small game setting changes from my mod, but everything else will work perfectly.

Alright, thanks Borgut! I have not encountered that issue yet, but I'll keep it in mind when I come across some giants

Concerning adjusting things like Giants combat reach, you could just make it an additional option plugin

Or make a separate "Deadly Creatures" mod...

I've played with this mod for a couple of hours and I have some suggestions.

Damage bleed through blocking is still too significant. You can spam attacks at someone who is blocking to kill them. Perhaps you can make it so that blocking will simply block all damage.

Alternatively, normal attacks could cost even more stamina. Normally, you can still use your normal attacks without stamina. If you change it so that you can't attack when you run out of stamina, the attack spamming can be eliminated. The Stamina regeneration rate will probably need to be increased if you implement this, otherwise fights might drag on for longer than necessary.

Timed blocking could be split into two parts. One for weapons that can normally block, the other for weapons covered by your dual wield parry mod. For weapons that can normally block, a timed block would damage the attacker's stamina. If this is done in conjunction with the idea above, enough timed blocks will exhaust the attacker. This will apply against the player as well. If a player's attack is blocked, the player's stamina will be reduced. The only kind of attack then that can break through a block would be a power attack.

The other part of timed blocking would apply to dual wielding characters. This will behave like it does already. A successful timed block will stagger the attacker. This might apply more to the dual wield parrying mod, but I think it would look more appropriate if pressing the parry key plays an animation. If an attacker hits you during that animation, they will stagger.

Lastly, the timed blocking script doesn't behave as consistently as it should. Sometimes it feels like I've timed a block perfectly, but the attacker doesn't stagger. Maybe it's a limitation of scripting, but I wonder if can be made a little less buggy.

Borgut, have you thought about working with a Magic balancing mod such as Balanced Magic so that you can integrate magical balancing and combat improvements better with your current physical combat work?

I've been trying out this mod, switching off and on between this and Duke Patrick's. It's a great mod, and it definitely makes combat better, but I have some comments, and bug issues.

First, I have to play with the damage reduction esp. Even on master, the increased damage makes fights too easy. I know everybody has different preferences, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Even with the no stagger spam options, I seem to get staggered too frequently, especially by spells, and maybe arrows. I've gotten in fights with archers, and seem to be at a disadvantage in terms of how often I get staggered vs them--and my current character has the stagger perk.

I'm pretty sure the following bug is from either this mod or killmoves plus (just saying for clarification, I think it's from deadly combat):
I've been in two fights now over the last couple of days where melee combat went haywire. The first time, I was attempting to kill a kneeling draugr, was as close as possible with no barriers in-between, and was unable to hit the draugr with the Sacrificial Blade (dagger). It was fine when I switched to a sword. I just had the exact same thing happen while fighting an ancient vampire (bad timing). I couldn't reach the vampire, despite being as close as possible. This time I couldn't hit the vampire with the sword either. I also had an animation glitch that was preventing me from completing my swings. Not sure if this is a hint that it was a bug in the stagger script, or it may be entirely unrelated to the reach problem.

Anyway, it's a great mod, and I can't wait to see where this goes. Also, FWIW, I'll second the support for some integration with Balanced Magic.