I'm very happy with l3essed's combat overhaul project, but it's fixing to be pretty invasive/fancy. I'd like something simpler myself that only changes the back end.
Basically, i'd like weapons to be more like oblivion but without straying from daggerfall skill checks.
For starters, looking at combat in daggerfall at what works, and what doesnt.
Vanilla combat:
Shields and Armor are kind of useless. basically they reduce the chance of being hit, but don't stop damage at all.
Combat is all about how to exploit enemy movement and avoid taking hits - kiting.
Combat feels slow and clunky and enemies are unresponsive on misses.
Blocking is an impossibility.
Weapons only change the damage done, not reach or speed.
AI enhanced feature update really does improve things, particularly people combat, but it puts you at a severe disadvantage with no possible benefits other than making the game exponentially harder.
So after examing how combat fails, we do like skill checks and statistics - thats why we play daggerfall after decades. So i'm hoping with a little programming that someone could WAY minimize the nasty bits of combat but emphasize the importance of statistics.
What would be good in combat is:
toe to toe encounters with limited (but possible) kiting
benefits for standing toe to toe if you're skilled.
more interesting combat interactions
more usefulness for shields and armor.
Let's talk about skills, items, and combat.
Spoiler!
Skills:
The easy answer is to copy the morrowind model. but that's a lot of work and is boring.
I believe oblivion captured the best of both worlds: intention and player skill with good statistics. there were problems there too but they were not nearly as bad as morrowind or daggerfall.
So i do not believe skills should change. I do believe that weapon skills should change the way combat works though. more on that in the combat section.
Armor:
Armor is for directly reducing damage due to hits - it's how it's designed. therefore...
In addition to armor class factoring into avoiding taking damage,100% damage reduction based on armor class will be in effect depending on armor condition.
So armor would provide 100% for new armor and degrade based on armor condition.
New - almost new - slightly used - used - battered - broken. Basically, broken armor would provide only 50% of armor protection.
Armor can and should be damageable - i think the damage number should be the chance for armor to degrade a level/2.
So while a rat bite for 5 damage probably wont ever damage your armor, an orc smashing into your armor for 20 damage or a zombie will have a decent chance. Armor will be trashed by the time you leave a dungeon, but it will actually save your life now.
Leather - no stealth/dodge malus but doubles the chance to degrade armor. material could be in daedric, but each tier only grants +1 to class
Chain - 25% stealth/dodge malus but double the durability (/4) to degrade armor. material could be in daedric, but each tier only grants +2 to class
Plate - 50% stealth/dodge malus and average durability.
In addition, if an enemy has a blunt weapon in his inventory (and a weapon would be randomly chosen if an enemy has more than one) blunt damage reduces armor protection 50%. Axes would do the same but 25%.
This makes armor truly worthwhile without making skill checks a problem and should be pretty easy to program into the game.
Shields:
Shields suck right now, no doubt about it. they don't really do anything at all and are not worth the weight or the money, and material doesn't change anything at all.
So in addition to the raw skill based check to block, your shield would give you another chance to block a shot to an area of your body if you would normally receive an attack there.
Bucklers would protect your hands, arms, and chest - 4 areas. This would grant a base +5 to AC.
Round shield would cover the head and protect for +10 AC.
Kite shield would also cover greaves and protect for +15 AC.
Tower shield would also cover greaves and protect for +20 AC.
The material of your shield would increase this number. a buckler would be 5+21 for daedric, a tower would be +20+21.
This would be a SECOND chance to the normal hit calculation after the first one determined where you'd be hit. IF the area is covered, it will trigger a second calculation that will NOT factor your body armor into the calculations, but will factor in your weapon skill as normal.
Weapons:
Short blades will all be 25% faster than normal weapons, but have half the reach.
Also, stabs deal 50% more damage and these attacks can never be dodged. this should make these weapons MUCH more useful.
Long Blades will be the standard and have good reach, particularly 2 handed weapons.
Axes will ignore armor 25% and be shorter.
stabs will do 50% less damage.
Blunt weapons will ignore armor 50% and be shorter AND 50% slower than normal weapons.
Overhead attacks and vertical attacks will deal 50% more damage, but also be 50% more likely to be dodged.
Blunt weapons reduce an enemies chance to block by /2, making them slow but deadly weapons that lend to kiting and planning ahead.
Also, two handed weapons will give a 25% damage bonus and a 25% bonus to hit.
Combat:
the idea of combat should largely remain the same : skill checks. But in addition to the armor and the way hits are calculated, enemies should also have hits calculated like a player. So if a monster has a dadric pauldron and nothing else on him it should be easy to hit him randomly in the different armored areas, but if you hit him in his armor you'll have a much harder time hitting him and when you connect you'll do more damage.
So in addition to this, weapon checks would count in blocking a hit - right now they do, but on failing a weapon check a second check should be performed specifically for blocking that pits your weapon skill against theirs. IF it succeeds, your weapon would swing to mid point and a blocking sound would be made, then return to ready.
Likewise, if you pass the first skill check but not the second your weapon will recoil and their weapon animation will play part way and reverse and a blocking sound will be made.
Parries are 100% guaranteed if you swing your weapon as the enemy swings their weapon (or they parry you), making a special sound. this is anytime in the animation. However, a skill check will be performed that if you succeed gives you a free hit (1/2 damage than normal) or them a free hit. You would either have to drastically succeed or fail for this free hit to happen.
if you or the enemy dodges an attack, your weapon will freeze at mid point and you will be unable to move for a set number of seconds (lets say 2) as you recover, or they will be frozen in the same way, allowing for a free hit should they be hit or yourself.
If you or an enemy misses, you would be frozen like a dodge for about 1 second. This is if you fail to properly direct an attack, not if you're facing an animal or other creature that makes a "whoosh" sound when you attack them.
Summary
Armor would be overhauled, but not remove existing mechanics.
Armor would give 100% damage reduction up to its armor class, but the armor will be significantly more likely to be damaged on receiving a hit which will reduce it's damage reduction amount as armor is damaged.
Weapons would have better reach and handling characteristics that require playstyle changes.
Skills would not be changed, but new formulas would be added to combat utilizing those skills.
Attacking a monster or player will either be blocked or parried or dodged.
A block would negate 100% of the damage, but is based on a raw weapon skill check so is not dependable at low skill levels for you or your enemies. If you have a shield you get two chances to block an attack.
A parry would be 100% guaranteed to happen if an attack is intercepted while you or your enemy is attacking, but there is a chance that a riposte (free automatic random swing that does 1/2 damage) based on raw weapon skill
A dodge is a chance that freezes you or your enemy in place for 2 seconds allowing for a tactical repositioning, free attack, or maybe even a backstab depending on what you or the enemy does. A dodge makes you or the enemy completely vulnerable!
Monsters with armor and weapons would calculate the exact way a player would in terms of armor protection, weapon skill check, ect.
Monsters without armor or weapons would be treated as vanilla daggerfall treats combat, with the exception of dodges and the fact a player still benefits from blocks and dodges.
Monsters would still retain a base armor class and all attribute skills relevant.
I'm pretty sure all monsters that spawn weapons and armor do not have a weapon skill, but i can be wrong. Their weapon skill would be agility+strength+level /4. So a daedra lord would be 270/4 = 67.5 weapon skill check.
Unfortunately this is not a very simple mod. Almost none of this stuff is exposed to modding, and some of it, namely Leather and Chain materials, would require almost a total engine rewrite to implement. Leather and Chain aren't armor types, they're Material types, as far as the engine is concerned. And the effects of different materials on weapon and armor quality are hard coded in dozens of different procedures all across the engine.
It is decidedly not the case with Chain armor that you can give it a material. Yes, you can edit it to look like, say, Daedric, but on the back end the game considers it to be Plate, not Chain. Leather and Chain are armor materials, from an engine perspective. Class restrictions on the use of Plate affects edited Leather or Chain armors if you make them Iron or greater. And this isn't one value in the code you would have to change to make it work differently, it would be the entire materials, weapons, and armor systems.
Trust me, I thought the same thing. Sadly it's beyond the reach of mods without a major rewrite of the entire game. You could hack a way around it (you already posted on that thread) but it's not a simple mod.
Bah humbug. Still at least want the combat to be a little more responsive. Is it possible to add extra calculations and tweak AI to match, or tweak weapon values? seems like some things are tweakable.
Yeah, If there's one thing I'd like to do, I'd like oblivion or skyrim type combat, but with the daggerfall/morrowind skillchecks. Like Birthright, the gorgon's alliance?