Combat Mods - General

[Besidilo]

As the title says, Combat Mods for Skyrim General.

 

1) What are the most popular combat mods on Nexus?

2) Which ones compliment STEP in a nice and easy way?

3) Any known conflicts with other popular mods?

4) Which depict combat in the most authentic way, and which provide a generally better gameplay?

5) What are some other gameplay mods to form a nice pack with them (non-conflicting, lore-friendly, stable, etc.)?

 

Give me everything you've got.

[Kelmych]

I haven't used it in Skyrim yet, but Duke Patricks - Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat  that he ported from Oblivion seems like a potentially useful combat mod. Using his mod made combat more challenging in Oblivion. It is based on his participation in Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) medieval heavy weapon tournament fighting.

[torminater]

What exactly do you refer to with "Combat Mods"? Something like Dance of Death or only alterations to the combat itself, how it works, etc.?

I know sth like TK Dodge https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20923

Here are all the combat mods the nexus is listing: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/searchresults/?cat=77, although many of them aren't real combat mods. You should sort by Downloads and you'll get the very most popular combat mods out there in the first couple of pages. I've found at least 10 I've already heard about and wanted to try on the first three pages after changing the sorting.

[frihyland]

Theres a thread on bethsoft that goes into this in depth.

[Besidilo]

Specifically mods that alter the combat system, like Duke Patrick's.

 

As far as I know, there are:

 

ACE - Combat Skills (this is mostly new perks and such)

Deadly Combat

Duel - Combat Realism

Duke Patricks - Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat

More Dynamic Injuries (in a way, it adds some realism in combat)

[Besidilo]

Theres a thread on bethsoft that goes into this in depth.

Thanks for that mate, I'll definitely check it out.

 

I was hoping for more STEP friendly approach though, so this might be the better place to ask those questions.

[frihyland]

Generally I think Skyrim combat is pretty good, specifically I think that complete lack of a dodge mechanic or effective block mechanic is pretty sad. If those mechanics were fixed and a good AI was written to implement them in NPC's, combat would be vastly improved.

[skwareballz]

Be careful with More Dynamic Injuries, spams your papyrus logs and stays in your saves after you uninstall.

 

Does Duke Patrick's still require a clean install for every upgrade? I liked his mod from Oblivion, but I'll wait until the updates are little less frequent.

 

I kinda disagree that Skyrim combat was good, probably the part of the game that disappointed me the most. I think Beth took a big step forward with some elements of game design over FO3 which was a step forward from Oblivion, but the combat system feels dated.

[Besidilo]

I'm considering either Duke Patrick's, ACE or Deadly Combat.

 

I wonder if ACE is compatible with Duke Patrick's.

[torminater]

Specifically mods that alter the combat system, like Duke Patrick's.

 

As far as I know, there are:

 

ACE - Combat Skills (this is mostly new perks and such)

Deadly Combat

Duel - Combat Realism

Duke Patricks - Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat

More Dynamic Injuries (in a way, it adds some realism in combat)

you got the wrong link for Duke Patricks: Duke Patricks - Archery And Heavy Weapons Combat

 

What about this mod? does it do anything else than the normal STEP ini tweaks? https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/13652 If it does, it'll be worth adding. You don't want to miss a one-time-opportunity and get killed... ;-)

Also More Dynamic Injuries is currently hidden.

[Neovalen]

This is a subject I've been dying to try out all the various mods, just not enough time in the day... lol. Up until now I've pretty much exclusively used Duel - Combat Realism but many of the others seem nice also.

[Neovalen]

Anyone have something further for this discussion? I still haven't been able to decide! lol

[frihyland]

Meh. In another month you'll be able to use TESGecko to combine them as you like.

[torminater]

I like Duke Patricks a LOT. It's just so awesome. There are only two major annoying issues:

- stutter in the most vicious fighting. This will probably never get fixed, since the shortest time-period the game can analyze is some horrendous big number as half a second or something like that. It might be somewhat realistic, since however fast your reflexes might be, they won't allow you to rip up your shield instantly and then thrust your sword forward the instant after you blocked an attack. some times i got some freezes though, as the game was probably calculating damage. What I like too is the AI overhaul. Multiple enemies work together against you. AND archers stay archers. They'll try to pick at you from the distance, whilst their companions keep you away from them. AWESOME. ALSO: if you get hit or "thrown back" if you got viciously blocked by your opponent you might stagger or FALL OVER more than a second after the "event" took place. Might be immersion breaking. AND: if you start fighting a heavy armored shield and mace-wielding redguard in the middle of nowhere you'll have to fight for about 5 minutes PLUS if you're lowlevel and ran out of stamina too often you won't even be able to KILL that guy even if he's kneeling down 3 times in a row, since it takes too long to recover your stamina. Additionally: After I fought off and killed FOUR bandits in a row at a level of only 5 and there was an archer left of them, I wasn't able to MOVE anymore. I was so wasted, I had to stagger over to him and although i actually never lost a lot of health I really got badly injured since he filled me up with about 10 arrows until i reached him and then he RAN AWAY! I couldn't hit him with my sword and after he got some distance between us he continued firing arrows at me. I managed to back him up against a mountain and ripped his face off, but hell yeah, that was a fight. There might be issues when upgrading to the newest version since you are always required to do a clean save. And it's still a bit buggy sometimes. Plus: Somehow he took away the "realistic" archery. If you hit somebody straight in his face you won't get any headshots anymore. But apparently you can get a lot of perks that will allow you to do a lot more damage with arrows. The blocking skill-tree and the archery skill tree are fully overhauled.

- message spamming in the top left corner. You'll get messages ALL the time whilst in fight. It might be useful at the beginning if you get told sth like 35.56 % momentum bonus every time you hit somebody, but at some point it might get on your nerves. I think you can disable it though, never read the full documentation.

[frihyland]

Most of those issues will go away as soon as the next version of SKSE is released, he is at the absolute limit of what can be done currently.  The next release will change the whole game with real event driven programming finally available.