Combat Gameplay/Animation Overhaul Recommendations?

[Fear2288]

I’m looking to finally give my game an overhaul in regards to the dated combat and I’m not even sure where to start, what’s good vs what isn’t, and what still works and what doesn’t.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

If possible, I’d appreciate if recommendations took the following into account:

1. I’m not looking to make the combat harder or more challenging, not looking to turn the game into a FromSoftware game.

2. More “modern” features and flair such as dodging, a stagger/poise system, interrupting enemy attacks with player strikes, etc

3. Being able to parry/block with dual weapons and weapon-magic combo

4. Anti-swarm combat AI (not having multiple enemies striking at you at once)

5. Combat animations that look well made, fluid, and “appropriate” for the “Western medieval fantasy” setting of Skyrim

Thanks in advance!

[AlphaVictorKilo]

Combat Gameplay Overhaul is a good starting point. There is also Dynamic Animation Replacer with various submods for each weapon type

[smr1957]

Originally posted by AlphaVictorKilo:

Combat Gameplay Overhaul is a good starting point. There is also Dynamic Animation Replacer with various submods for each weapon type

Actually, you want Open Animation Replacer - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92109
It replaces DAR, As DAR no longer works on the current game version and is no longer being supported or updated to do.

[AlphaVictorKilo]

Originally posted by smr1957:

Originally posted by AlphaVictorKilo:

Combat Gameplay Overhaul is a good starting point. There is also Dynamic Animation Replacer with various submods for each weapon type

Actually, you want Open Animation Replacer - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92109
It replaces DAR, As DAR no longer works on the current game version and is no longer being supported or updated to do.

Huh interesting...I was just using it yesterday to mess around and didn't have any issues, the more ya know

[Vlad 254]

Another good thing regarding OAR is that if you are already using DAR you can switch mid playthrough. I did so right after OAR came out and never missed a beat. Matter of fact I keep forgetting to update my load order guides.

Edit: And you need do nothing special. Simply swap them out. (always save first just in case but that's the same with any change/update)

[Vlad 254]

Originally posted by AlphaVictorKilo:

Originally posted by smr1957:

Actually, you want Open Animation Replacer - https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/92109
It replaces DAR, As DAR no longer works on the current game version and is no longer being supported or updated to do.

Huh interesting...I was just using it yesterday to mess around and didn't have any issues, the more ya know

Oh it "works", but not nearly as well as OAR.

[AlphaVictorKilo]

Also!

Two other combat mods that are very customizableto your specific tastes are Valhalla Combat and Wildcat (I think they can even be used together? Or at least I've seen them together in modlists) for ultimate customisability! (I'm butchering the spelling I know)

[Nabinkemper]

I have been using Wait Your Turn which addresses the multiple enemies hitting at once issue.

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/65091

[Catalyst]

MCO + SCAR as a baseline framework replicates the combat feel of newer games, though i guess you could call it "souls-like" since, you know, fromsoftware invented attack chains and combos and dodging. but it's got tons of animation packs available and is fairly simple to set up

[Fear2288]

Thanks for the input thus far.

I’ve been using mods for Skyrim for years and years but never really paid attention to the combat modding scene - usually just focused on visual upgrades, bug fixes/stability, new weapons/armors, quests…actually I pretty much only ignored combat mods.

The Nexus wasn’t much help as quite a few of the most endorsed combat mods are out of date, and I even went looking through Collections and couldn’t even find a combat overhaul collection to find ideas.

I’ve been trying Valhalla for a day or so now and I’m honestly not impressed. Maybe it’s because my current character is a spell-sword fighter and the mod’s features are more geared towards one-handed and shield or two-handed…also, it seems to just stop working at random so I don’t know what’s going on there…plus the recent comments on the mod’s page are claiming the creator more or less abandoned it and has no intention of addressing the hefty amount of bugs or adding new features.

Also, I have two questions for those that know:

1. What’s the deal with OAR and DAR?

DAR got updated to work with the current version, but OAR was released as a replacement before Felisky came back…but now OAR is the preferred utility?

And I keep seeing that mods that use DAR work just fine with OAR, but I’m unclear what this involves…do I just download OAR and uninstall DAR and all my DAR mods magically work?

But how does that happen if DAR is a dependency for those mods?

And if DAR mods “just work” with OAR in such a simple way why is there a utility to convert DAR mods to OAR?


2. What’s the deal with MXO, Nemesis, and FNIS?

There’s been a couple animation mods that have caught my eye that require MXO/Nemesis. Looking at Nemesis though, it does the same thing as FNIS (just better?) but is not compatible with FNIS.

What do I do though if I have mods that depend on the XMPSE skeleton?

There is no Nemesis version/patch for XMPSE from what I can see. So does that mean if I want to use an MXO/Nemesis mod I have to say goodbye to all of my XMPSE/FNIS mods?


@ALP

I hope that’s sarcasm, because FromSoftware absolutely did NOT invent attack chains, combos, and dodging.