Hi Guys,

Me and a few friends are planning on making an alternative combat mod, primarily focused around 3rd person combat.

Let me start by stating that I say "alternative" and not improved because I believe that that's highly subjective.

On to my question. One of the key things that I need to be able to implement for this mod to be effective (I believe) is a Lock-on feature. I want to know what people's (especially those with the know-how) opinions are on the viability of this?

Specifically I want it to be able to:

Basics
* Lock on to an enemy by pressing a hot-key
*This will center the camera around that target

Movement
* When pressing A or D i want the PC to circle (with radius being their distance as they press A or D) around the enemy left and right respectively
* While circling around the enemy I want the PC to rotate so they are always facing the locked onto enemy
* When pressing W or D i want them to walk towards and backwards away(respectively) from the enemy

Changing Target
* When pressing the key again I want the PC to change to another enemy

I understand that this might be extremely hard or impossible, but after doing some research it seems that someone was able to implement something similar to what I want in oblivion (see http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3832).

Unfortunately it seems that it was linked to a ring and the player was unable to toggle between enemies.

Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated

Well thats was somewhere obsolete mod it relays on vanilla scripting system,
with OBSE it will become more advanced for example we can use more advanced input functions
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Category:Input_Functions_(OBSE)
another feature thats add OBSE was ability get type of object in crosshair and ability better work with Tokens instead of equip rings for detection.
I recommend you check
Dark Souls Style Combat mod thread
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1287117-wip-maybe-dark-souls-style-combat

While its' obviously up to you how to make your mod, I honestly think the only thing third-person melee combat needs done differently is to simply make weapons have a wider arc of contact so that it is collision-based, rather than "aimed" like a gun. Having "aimed" attacks only makes sense in a first-person context, where you can easily aim those attacks.

Lock-ons only really make sense as a compromise for third-person shooting, and in a game where you already have a first/third person switch, it's generally better to just play third-person melee, and first-person ranged.

I picked up a new copy of oblivion on steam to get used to my way around the CS, and I managed to get a Lock-On of types working. It's not very elegant and has many problems though.

Pretty much reading though the wiki and tutorials and hoping that scripting doesn't change too much between the CS and CK.


I agree with you to an extent, I do find that Lock-On systems can sometimes be used as a crutch and I guess if you're going for immersion it's a bit of a deal breaker. But they can be done well, this of however relies on the rest of the combat system, which can be a pretty big thing to take on (for me anyway with my limited experience) and balancing will be a nightmare.

I guess this project has turned into more of a way to learn some TES scripting. Which has been really fun in itself, and I hope to try and get a Lock-on implemented into Skyrim as a personal goal.


Forgive my noobness but does that mean I'll be able to link the lock-on directly to a key-bind and not have to go through an item/spell?

I would say yes, but I'm not 100% sure what functions http://www.skse.silverlock.org/will have.

Speaking from http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9767, the hardest thing to implement in a feature like this is the target selection. Hopefully it will be possible to make a mod like this without requiring a script extender, but I expect if that's not the case then it will eventually certainly be possible with the script extender.

Cipscis

Do you mean how target selection is prioritized?

Do you think it will be possible (or was possible is previous Kits) to have a target Lock-on toggle?


For example you bind Lock-On to "C"

Then you press C and D and it will toggle Lock-On to the nearest enemy on the right or C and A and it will toggle Lock-On to the nearest left enemy?

Or an even simpler system where you press Alt-C and it toggles to the next nearest enemy, and repeat presses just cycle between enemies.

This would all definitely be possible, if the SKSE has the same kind of functions that OBSE did, or the CK has shiny new functions that mimic those in OBSE. I once designed such a third-person system for Oblivion, but never got around to polishing it for release. It is certainly doable.

I like this idea a lot. Although, I think a good implementation would be aim assist rather than a full-blown lock on system. either one would be a good option though IMO.