I don't mean to get off topic, but you mentioned you can change hardcoded settings, correct? I would be very interested if you ever find settings that can be used to make regular damage (from a normal strike) effect stamina instead of health (or even both). I've never done any modding really, but I'd love to get try my hand at getting my http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1299411-concept-damage-overhaul-not-tactics/ to work! Any information would be greatly appreciated!



Oh, I definitely understand. I've grown up in martial arts, though I've only been training in the art of Aikijujutsu for close to 5 years. Getting thrown around by techniques that are designed to cripple and kill isn't too great on a body either. Not only have I been plagued by a bone spur in my neck causing nerve compression (I still don't know what caused the spur), but I've also had shoulder injuries from landing awkwardly, so I feel your pain. My prayers are with you


Ps. Have you ever trained in Eastern arts? I would definitely recommend Aikido or Aikijujutsu as a good learning base. The actual arts are quite easy on the body (if you can get out of being the crash dummy), and they are designed to work the same whether you have a sword or not.

Then again, I'm sure you already have much more knowledge (or even training) of them than I do

That's something not in the game settings.. but rather in how the hits are calculated, which is in the functions and not the game settings. What'd be (relatively) easy to do is script an on-hit effect that checks the health damage and applies it to stamina (or something of that sort). You'll need the CK, though.

spooky; got your message, I'll send them to you tomorrow - gotta type them all into a file.

Thank you! That's one step closer... and one day less to wait! I hope the Creation Kit comes soon!

spooky, i will gladly ask a few things. i only played oblivion for about 35 - 40 hours a couple of years ago and had one of your mods installed for about 50% of my game time so i dont know how things worked back then.

so here are my questions:

1) IRL you can attack from various angles which require different blocks. a block that fits one angle doesnt fit the others. multiple options of attack VS multiple options for defense. the better combat systems in games are built like that. in skyrim there are no directions. the only attack options are normal attacks, power attacks and maybe bashing.
IRL the natural balance of the combat (if i assume wrong than correct me) comes from the fact that u need to faint and attack in different combinations in order to get around the defense.
how are you planning to make combat work with this in mind? what will be the options of attack and defense? how can you make it challenging on the AI and the player to defend himself?

2) if defending your self requires a lot of effort than how will this be balanced when you are fighting multiple enemies?
IRL i assume it's hard enough to fight just one enemy. if you are fighting 2 or more than this sounds like a suicide. in skyrim the player is constantly fighting in situations that in reality would mean death - meaning he is fighting multiple enemies from all directions and not everyone can cast magic to save their lives all the time. if defense is pretty hard against one enemy, how can a normal player fight against a few?

3) in skyrim it's completely valid to play in 3rd person. in melee combat its actually pleasant on the eye AND more effective to a degree. however in 3rd person its much harder to aim attacks at various body parts. judging hight is really hard since the camera is over head. also with the sideways power attack animation its nearly impossible to aim horizontally.
so when thinking how hard it is to aim sword attacks - how will you make the geometry more interesting without making 3rd person players always hit the enemy's feet and making power attacks too random in where they hit?
i'd assume the best way is to make basic damage high and effective but only provide bonuses to hitting well. how are you doing it?

4) how is it possible in your mods to stop an attacker from throwing a 10 swings combo at you? how can the player interrupt such a combo? in oblivion it was possible to block. in skyrim not every character can block. that's a big difference.

5) how is it possible to stop a staggering trap? yo mentioned that you figured it out in OB but for those of us who dont know how it was done - please share.

6) are you considering adding block with dual wielding and magic+weapon combinations?

7) are you taking into consideration that many gamers play with a controller? controllers dont have extra buttons like a keyboard does and dont allow very fast an accurate turning and aiming.


i'd love to hear your answers and see how you figured these things out. you have way more experience in these issues than i, i guess.

I wonder if the changes you want to make in the magic system are compatible with those from mods like empowered destruction magic. I am using this mod because I wanted to increase the time required to cast dual wield spells so I wouldn't rely so much in stunlock

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"IRL you can attack from various angles which require different blocks. a block that fits one angle doesnt fit the others. multiple options of attack VS multiple options for defense. the better combat systems in games are built like that. in skyrim there are no directions. the only attack options are normal attacks, power attacks and maybe bashing.
IRL the natural balance of the combat (if i assume wrong than correct me) comes from the fact that u need to faint and attack in different combinations in order to get around the defense.
how are you planning to make combat work with this in mind?"


You are right, but I already described my feint system in a pervious post.

see here: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1315431-relz-duke-patricks-combattweaks/page__view__findpost__p__19924022


"what will be the options of attack and defense?"


Once I have all the features from my oblivion mod working: There will be passive blocking, active parry, bob and weave dodge, locational armor (for the beefy actors it could be a good helmet is all you/they will need) range games where you fight to stay in your effective range while putting your opponent in their ineffective range, and some other smaller features for defense and then slow and fast attacks with location critical hit system (no more random critical hits) plus the offence part of the "range games" and some other smaller offensive features such as some simple grappling and pushing and also stagger/knock backs from large SLOW heavy weapons or even fast lighter weapons if you use momentum in your attacks such as sprinting.

Example of some of the other smaller features: Aiming your shot under their parry weapon (this includes shields remember) will give you a bonus to land your shot. Starting your attack at one guy but then finishing that attack at the guy next to him instead will help to trick the next guy into missing/preventing their block!
Attacking and also running at your opponent or spinning your character around more than 180 degrees will add momentum to even your fast attacks that may knock back, knock down or stagger them. Dodging (will be effected greatly by encumbrance)!



"if defending your self requires a lot of effort"

I am not sure where you got that from. Defending will be easy if you use a large shield or if you have a highly skilled character. Getting past defense is the hard part.



"in skyrim it's completely valid to play in 3rd person. in melee combat its actually pleasant on the eye AND more effective to a degree. however in 3rd person its much harder to aim attacks at various body parts. judging hight is really hard since the camera is over head. also with the sideways power attack animation its nearly impossible to aim horizontally. so when thinking how hard it is to aim sword attacks - how will you make the geometry more interesting without making 3rd person players always hit the enemy's feet and making power attacks too random in where they hit?
i'd assume the best way is to make basic damage high and effective but only provide bonuses to hitting well. how are you doing it?"


YES, it will be a little easer to get the feints to work if you are in first person, but I fight in 3rd person more than 80% of the time. It is not going to be as bad as you are fearing.


"how can the player interrupt such a combo? in oblivion it was possible to block. in skyrim not every character can block. that's a big difference."

I am not sure what you mean, in Oblivion very few actors blocked even 10 percent of the time. (in fact the block percentage in most of the Oblivion combat styles were set to only 5 percent) I changed this so that they would block 90 percent of the time. I will do the same kind of thing in Skyrim (already have somewhat). See my pervious posts concerning animals and creatures that have no blocking ability at all.




"how is it possible in your mods to stop an attacker from throwing a 10 swings combo at you?" AND "how is it possible to stop a staggering trap?"

By not allowing staggering traps in the first place. I do this with many small mechanics when used together are greater then the sum of their parts and not just by one big and ugly mechanic such as making attacks hit like you are hitting smoke.

All attacks will use stamina based on the weight AND LEVERAGE of the weapon, Low stamina will cause exhaustion animations plus cause other effective negative games results, so you will not be allowed to hit over and over without strategic pauses. Stagger lock comes from the stagger being longer than the time it takes to attack. Attacks will not be fast, once you are in 60 to 100 pounds of armor and have to deal with the leverage and momentum of medieval heavy weapons you are not swinging attacks like you are in a mortal combat game. On top of that I may slow down the attacks slightly more than real life to compensate for the unavoidable fact that you are fighting with only two senses (sound and sight) and even those two are hampered by a 2 dimensional flat 18 inch window with no peripheral vision and very limited battle soundscapes.
IF you use a light weapon like a Cutlass or Katana your fast attacks will be faster than the heaver melee weapons but will not carry the momentum in most case to "stagger", with a few exceptions such as using a sprinting attack. But then you will not be able to do 10 sprinting attacks at once, thus no stagger lock!


"are you considering adding block with dual wielding and magic+weapon combinations?"

Yes!



"are you taking into consideration that many gamers play with a controller? controllers dont have extra buttons like a keyboard does and dont allow very fast an accurate turning and aiming."


I do not like hot keys nor multiple key combinations were your finger must type out a tap dance to do simple things. Most things in my mods work via what I have named action triggers, and not by dozens of keys as in Call of Duty. (I hate that about the pc version of CoD. )

For example to denock an arrow in my Oblivion mod you aim your bow at the ground, this simple and natural action trigger would denock the bow.

However I do not like game consoles, so in the end it is possible that my mods may not be for console type players. You will find that most mods by most moders will be the same way because most moders DO like multiple key combinations and hot key usage.



"how can you make it challenging on the AI and the player to defend himself?"

I am not sure I exactly understand your question, but it seems this (and many of your concerns ) is one you will have to answer your self by trying the combat mod once I have all the features working.

Or maybe this type of mod is not your thing. I do not mod to be popular, that is why
I have no desire/time to try to make my mods compatible with every other mod out there.
And why you will not see my mods self promoted like they were "Shamwows" and plastered onto every website on the internet. I have very specific personal reasons for moding this game.

the game I find more challenging in terms of combat is mount&blade. But your system seems even more complete. Keep up the good work

Are you sure its not possible to alter attack speeds with scripting? I know there's a dragon shout that changes all attacks to be really fast, so I assumed there'd be a way to alter the speed of animations on the fly. Is there another reason why it wouldn't be able to be done with scripting?

Edit: Also, rather than utilizing strength to determine the force, why not utilize that character's weapon skill as the basis? Like nab what weapon they're using, it's mass, and their skill in that, and use that for a basis for the strength of their blow?

Bethesda games do not utilize actual collided geometry with the weapons and shields for attacks. All attacks with melee weapons are like shooting shotguns, the game looks to see what is in your kill zone at a particular time in the attack animation and then applies the damage. Less damage if you are facing the right way and are performing the BLOCK animation.

As I understand it M&B does use collided geometry, that makes it much more of a combat simulator I would guess. However, I did some research on modding M&B and it is not nearly as modifiable as Bethesda's games are. I had 30 years of combat mechanics ideas I wanted to try and oblivion allowed me to realize a great deal of them were all other games I have tried would not (but mostly because I am not a real programmer).

Just play it - its fun!!

What could it hurt to try it a for a few hours.

Just noticed this- I seriously hope you're older than I (*you are, I saw your combat experience note*), because I have a few back (Musculature/tendon issues in the lumbar, and a few in the wrist (I can type without pain if drunk... Take that as you should)) issues and... ugh, oh god, f that crap. I used to joke about workers comp. I do not do so anymore. Unless they give me Tramadol and Oxys. Then I just spend the week high as a kite. Rather fun to go into your work legally high and just really relaxed.

Good luck with that. It also seems it's driven you into the area I'm driving -- getting into coding/computer related/non-lugging-[censored]-around.

Lugging [censored] around for a living svcks.

Ed. is *[...]*

I did not mean that, what I meant was that I wish you could change the speed of different parts of the attack animation INDEPENDENTLY as that would bring whole new world of realism and strategy to game combat.

In simple terms a sword blow is made up of 3 main "animations". The moving it to maneuver past defenses and hit your target, once it hits you then have to recover control of the weapon, and then resetting/adjusting the position and stance for the next attack. A power attack has yet another one where you move or wind up a little more for the attack.

BTW You see this "wind up for the attack" a lot in Skyrim and I love that only because I hardly ever see that in other games. However it is also telegraphing a blow and that would be a big no no in a real fight. But in a game we need to start seeing this kind of thing so that games mechanics can be designed to allow you to respond to the attack with some thought and not just reflexive button mashing.

Anyway....

So a chop with an 2h axe means your attack first moves relatively quickly to hit the target but then takes an eternity to get control of the weapon again and then reset it for the next attack. Watch a youtube of a Lumber Jack chopping a tree and you will see what I mean.

So because all games make a sword blow ONE or in some rare cases TWO animations you end up with a boat load if issues in trying to make the combat balance correctly when it comes to the speed of the attacks. In general you are forced to make the ONE attack animation at a speed that represents an average of all the other missing animations. This can make laymen players feel that a realistic attack speed is "too slow". You see this a lot in other thread where people are trying to speed up the attacks in Skyrim and have all kinds of misinformation about how the weapons are actually lighter and faster than it is in the game. I use to try to jump in these threads to try to explain
the more esoteric points about how the leverage and balance of the the western medieval weapon (not the total weight of the weapon) slows down the cycle of attacks and how steel or even layers of ridged waxed boiled leather armor adds a lot to slowing down attacks as well as much of what I have said above in this post, but I stopped doing that in most cases it just takes too much of my modding time and there are way too many people on the internet that are being mislead by movies, comics and games based on unarmored light weapons combat styles and a poor understanding (real world application of) of even just high school level physics.

Nothing bothers me more than the fact that for 30 years DEV have used Eastern unarmed combat styles to animate Knights in plate armor for most games!





Force = acceleration times mass *

I am not saying "skill" has no effect on force at all, the more skilled you are the less energy you need to use (you move with more efficiency) and the more accurate your attacks are, which means each of your attacks have more of a chance to bypass your opponent's defenses and more likely to hit were you aim (that can help in hitting critical locations).

But strength has far far FAR more do do with how hard slow, heavy western medieval weapons hit than skill.

Game DEV unfortunately have promoted this idea that skill is more important than strength for high damage because it was easier for them to think of it that way and to program.

In this mod Skill will allow you to hit with more accuracy (which will allow you to hit critical locations more often) , hit using less stamina and perform many of the cerebral actions such as feints better, but it will not greatly effect basic damage done by the weapon.


* Momentum force ( mass and speed are equal importance) Kinetic Energy (E= Mc2) is applicable with high speed weapons like bullets, but momentum is more important when dealing with swords speeds trying to damage thru armor.

Just to put in a thought - as a person develops his skill in the sword, it could be that they put on muscle with the development of the skill. I know if I did everything the player did in-game, I'd be putting on massive amounts of muscle.

Very good point, but then we are heading even more into oversimplification of the game combat. Why not just click on your opponent and the game would compare skill levels then one person falls dead? That is the way many of the very early PC games and table top war games worked and I want much more than that in today's virtual reality games.


I was never as big and strong as most of my opponents in the SCA
just look here, scroll to the picture at the bottom of the page:

http://www.spookyfx.com/book/tromp.html

I am the small guy in the Black and Orange armor!

Skill will never make me as big and strong as that guy! Genes have a LOT to do with it, just ask any women body builder, it takes 3 times the effort/work for woman to put on the same muscle! (Think about that when you see the very massive female body builders!)

This was a blessing to me some would say, because it forced me to think more about the physics and psychology of combat than many of my peers in the SCA.

And that's a fair point in it's own. The issue lies in that the game is already over-simplified in these regards - so if you're willing to put in the effort to have an actual strength category of some type, then that's the most preferable.

I read in another thread that the attributes from Oblivion/Fallout are still hidden in the code. Hopefully this pans out.

yeah... thank you God for PC and virtual reality!
It allows me to still use my mind, which contrary to popular belief is at least HALF of real life combat.

ICE is your best friend, I made a custom pillow with ice blankets that I sit on at the PC.
I use to use heat, that felt good for an hour but was making the problem worse in the long run.

For years I refused to use ice even as I was told to do so by several people with the same issues. I erroneously thought ice would make it hurt more.
The inflammation is reduced by the cold and helps a lot! After a few month of cold therapy I could walk upright again and even do some limited fighting.

Sitting in a chair for long hours will increase heat to the sensitive areas as well and cause "other issues", I have thought sometimes about selling the pillow I designed to people that have to sit for long periods. But it is a little embarrassing attaching your name to that kind of a product....

Really ... where is this info?

Thanks for your detailed response! But on the note of animation controls with scripts, would it be possible to do something like what this game does? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy__xdOfIAQ

It's not so visible with the weapon this guy is using, but you probably will see it. But once an attack collides with an enemy, the blade slows down a very small amount as it cuts through. Will it be possible
to do something like that in Skyrim you think? It really does bother me how you attack but don't really feel like you're hitting anything, slowing down the animation on collision would help that I think?

Actually this might be a better video with how he uses the axe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxHfaK8l4qM&t=5m8s

P.S. I always love your responses since I learn a lot that I didn't know before.

Also, as another side note. In relation to your actual swordsman experience, do you think the combat in this game represents actual sword combat well? If so/or not then why? Just curious.

Hello shingouki

You said:

Thanks for your detailed response! But on the note of animation controls with scripts, would it be possible to do something like what this game does? http://www.youtube.c...h?v=oy__xdOfIAQ It's not so visible with the weapon this guy is using, but you probably will see it. But once an attack collides with an enemy, the blade slows down a very small amount as it cuts through. Will it be possible
to do something like that in Skyrim you think? It really does bother me how you attack but don't really feel like you're hitting anything, slowing down the animation on collision would help that I think?



Me:

Love that idea, wish it could be done easily in this game, absolutely cannot unless a massive advancement in the games animations management has occurred from Fallout.
Or some talented moder animator makes all the "slowed down weapon moving" animations for every weapon type in the game that I could forced played (stopping the original faster attack animations) just as the weapon hit. We will know more once the CK is out, but do not hold you breath.

However, I already have working mechanics (in my Oblivion mod) to give the player the feeling that the weapons are hitting more than smoke using pain reactions from the actors and occasion staggers to the attacker when you hit with short shots and (naturally ) when you hit with the large top heavy weapons.



You:
Also, as another side note. In relation to your actual swordsman experience, do you think the combat in this game represents actual sword combat well? If so/or not then why? Just curious.


Me: yes and no.

Better than MOST other RPG games if you ignore M&B I mean and much better than most action combat games.

Following are games I have played (Keep in mind I have not really played M&B only seen a few youtubes of the combat.) that had elements of greatness for realistic combat. They include but are not limited to:


Die By the Sword
A game WAY ahead of its time, too much ahead of its time as players at that time liked and were unwilling to change from their button mash ways. To be fair DBTS also did have somewhat complicated controls for attacking on the fly, however they also provided a “move editor” (Something I believe you will see in future games. Maybe even Bethesda will do this.) It was a fairly intuitive animation editor that allowed players to make their own attacks and parry animations to use in the game. The game used basic physics calculations anolyzing the speed and movement in the custom animations you made to determine the damage done. Plus there was real collision for blocking and attacking with the weapons and shields. WOW…THAT was some game for it’s time. I wish the DEV had been rewarded for their extreme forward thinking but alas they went out of business.


Blade of Darkness
First modern graphics game I can rember playing that did not have a lot of confusing melee weapons “fire works” (light trials from weapons and explosions on impact that covered up all the actions behind a fog of color lights) . You could actually see what was happening in the combat and they gave you time to think about your counter moves. I did not like the lock on system however. Attacks seem deadly with only a few hits killing your opponents.



Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Good Archery and good feeling of melee combat weight, momentum and movement.
Based on the Half Life 2 engine so it had a lot going for it at its core as far as the physics were concerned.



Oblivion (surprised?)
Oblivion did one thing that blew me away, but I think it was serendipity and not by design, I really do not know for sure. It was the categorization of Blunt weapons and Blade weapons. The names of the categories were a poor choice because it confused layman players. But most low carbon steel western medieval weapons would lose their sharp edge very quickly in a battle, so eventually during the combat they became clubs with the only real difference being the overall weight and if they were primarily top heavy where you would hit with the center of gravity of the weapon, or balanced so that you would hit with the center of percussion of the weapon. Balance weapons tend to be faster and more agile and could tear unprotected flesh that was exposed by the gaps of the armor and could dump the power of the attack at the point of contact all at once. Top heavy weapons tend to store more momentum and then dish out the power at the point of contact over a longer time thus more easily causing damage thru armor.

However there was a heck of a lot in Oblivion that was sadly pure game-ish mechanics with no base of reality at all. This is why I was so surprised when the DEV made the change to more realism in the combat for Skyrim and even said that was their intention in interviews.






Skyrim

Wow I just do not have time to list all the mechanics in the game that are not realistic (this is no big surprise as the DEV are expert programmers not expert medieval melee fighters) so I will mostly list the aspects that I remember that are mostly realistic.


First thing about Skyrim I notice that I loved was they got ditched most of the melee combat Fire Works!

OH YES!!!

The magic shaders on the magic weapons are subtle but to me more energy like and therefor to me more magical without being distracting!

Next it was the nice and slow attacks. Actually they are not really “slow” but the attacks include a WIND UP animation that adds to the overall time of the attack. This in part has made a lot of players think that the attacks are too slow.

Now I have not noticed any difference in speed between weapons of the same type. All the war hammers seem to be moving the same speed, I could be wrong it may just be very subtle. I will know more when the CK is out.

The weapons are more realistic looking than Oblivion and other FRPG. Too bad the hit range is so ridiculously long such as with the short swords that can hit from 20 feet away.

Damage is better than Oblivion but still not enough, you need to be SCARED to get hit!

Blocking animation is clunky, it seems that there is a preliminary SET action for block animation and then after you can perform the BLOCK animation. This worries me, I need to find some way to remove the preliminary part of the block. Blocks normally move only 10% the distance and speed of most attacks.

Everything about the armor could be changed if we are talking about realism. It needs to protect more than it does but also have weakness to specific types of damage such as thrust or burn or blunt force damage. It needs to degrade (Bashing apart armor or ripping the chainmail open to exposed the opponent was a documented tactic used in period tournament fights) it needs to weigh more, there needs to be NO SKILL to wearing armor, now that is just so silly it drive me shake my head.

The auto aim for melee weapons is disgusting, you can hit a target 90 degrees to your flank in 3^rd person, this may be a result of adapting the Skyrim for console gaming but who knows for sure.


Shield charging was good to see but the control of the shield charge is terrible. I cannot not seem to control it at will with accuracy even with 100 block skill. And it seems to still trigger sometimes even when you stop running a few feet in front of the opponents. But then those are just bugs I guess not design decisions.

I like how they made more of an attempt at pushing the fighters viscerally around in combat and occasional struggle to regain balance (control) of your actor.

The AI is much better than Oblivion about trying to get around to your back, too bad they did not also include bonus damage to hitting from that advantage point.

I may come back latter and edit in more here, but for now I need to get to bed and this is all that come to my sleep hazy mind right now.

Duke, I'm curious as to what you mean by there should be no skill to wearing armor? My layman sense is suggesting to me that should you and I don the same armor, you'd be able to use it better than I. Aside from being able to move better in it, getting less tired or encumbered by it, you'd also know how to use it defensively (turning the right way for example), while I would just get hit and pray I survive. The armor skill tree already needs tweaking at the least (no encumbrance for heavy armor again, really Bethesda?!), so how would you do it to be more reflective of reality, given the chance?

EDIT: Norbingel asked his question while I was typing, haha! Still, I am curious


I can definitely understand that as far as having armor getting stronger the more you wear it. But just for my own knowledge, would an armor skill make sense in terms of "experience"... or getting used to armor? That is if a novice has never worn heavy armor before, wouldn't his movements be slower and more awkward than someone who has worn it for years?

Ah, and I have another question. I fear I really have no personal experience to make such a claim, but is my thought of armor off base? To me, it seems as though heavy plate armor would be akin to a tank's armor. If hit, it either stops the strike or it doesn't. Is there really much of a grey area where it would allow a percentage of damage through like in a video game? I can understand lighter, more flexible armor, but for plate? Concussive energy, perhaps, but cutting or piercing?

One thing you have to remember about game mechanics is that HP doesn't necessarily represent how much you're actually injured. It represents your paranormal ability to avoid otherwise deadly events. A more experienced adventurer(higher level) wouldn't be able to take a stab through the heart any better than an inexperienced adventurer. However, he may be significantly better at not getting stabbed in the heart in the first place.

So taking a hit in armor still bangs you up in that it reduces your ability to stay alive, regardless of whether it actually does bodily harm. Of course this is coming from a game-ish standpoint and I'm sure spooky will have reality based thoughts on the matter.

spooky; Sorry I took so long, I'm now getting all the GMST's into a file to send off.