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MadAborModding

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MadAborModding

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About this mod

A lightweight, highly compatible combat mod designed to prevent gameplay from becoming boring as players reach high levels.

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  • Mandarin
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NOW HAS AN OBLIVION PORT!!!
❌THE PROBLEM:
In Skyrim, players can become so powerful at high levels that the game turns boring.
  • When most enemies pose little to no threat, encounters lose their appeal, and without any challenge, the fun fades away. More Below:
Spoiler:  
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  • This is further exacerbated by mods like Requiem, which delevel the world.
  • Raising the difficulty helps, but it is not an ideal solution. Not only does doing so undermine the player’s sense of progression (by making them arbitrarily weaker), it also makes proper high level enemies overly challenging. This causes players to constantly adjust the difficulty just to enjoy the game again. 

✅THE SOLUTION:
With Engaging Combat, I seek to remedy these issues through forcing the player to actively engage in combat no matter what level of threat they are facing.
This is achieved through making the Player's resistances conditional. If you don't play well—by not dodging or blocking—you will lose a portion of your resistances on hit.

This results in a gameplay loop that incentives you to take every fight seriously because, if you don't, you'll die. More Below:
Spoiler:  
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Though it may not seem like much, the presence of this mechanic transforms Skyrim's combat in a big way.
  • Players are now forced to treat EVERY encounter cautiously. Even low-level bandits can take down high-level players if they’re careless or outnumbered.
  • Players are incentivized to block or dodge attacks even if they have the stats to tank them. 
  • While the first few hits may not deal much damage, letting yourself be hit will lead to each subsequent blow becoming increasingly lethal.
 

⚔️ENGAGING COMBAT's MECHANICS:
All Mechanics in Engaging Combat are 100% Scriptless and thus highly responsive.
In addition, all can be toggled on and off via the MCM
Mechanic I
Armor Rating Debuff when hit by an unblocked weapon.
Use STB Widgets if you want to see debuffs on your HUD
When installed, anytime the player fails to block or dodge an attack from an NPC wielding a weapon, the player's armor rating is decreased by a percentage of their total armor rating. This percentage decrease compounds with each subsequent unblocked hit to a maximum of 95% decreased armor rating. 
More Details:
Spoiler:  
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  •  This armor reduction is not permanent. After 7 seconds (adjustable in the MCM) of the player avoiding incoming attacks through blocking or dodging, their armor rating will reset to normal.
  • Implementation is 100% Scriptless.
    From a realism perspective, think of this mechanic like armor gradually breaking down under constant pressure—each hit weakens it further until it offers next to no protection.Additionally, because the damage done to armor rating is proportionally based, low level players will be largely unaffected by the mechanic.
    • For instance, losing 12.5% of your armor rating to an unblocked strike won't significantly increase the damage you take if you don't have much armor to begin with.

Mechanic II
Magic Resist Debuff when hit by a spell.

If the player is hit by a spell, and not casting a ward, they will lose a proportion of their Magic Resist (MR). The MR decrease stacks to a maximum of 95% reduction.
More Details:
Spoiler:  
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  • Decreasing Magic Resist (MR) each time you are hit by a hostile spell. (12.5% per direct hit by a spell) .
  • Works similarly to armor debuffs. 
  • Implementation is 100% Scriptless.
  • MR will never drop below 0 from this effect. Nor will you receive debuffs if you already have negative MR (Like if you use the Apprentice Stone).
  • Using a Restoration spell on yourself will instantly heal your MR back to full. A ward will work as well and stop you from losing any more MR from incoming spells
  • By default, the MR debuff goes away after 4 seconds if not hit by another spell. 
  • Because this effect is distributed via SkyPatcher, you can't alter the duration via the MCM. However, you can change the duration to whatever you want by changing the all the "4"s in the instances of "~0~4~0" within the SkyPatcher file, "madEngagingCombat_MagicResist.ini".
  • Compatible with all mods that add/change spells.
  • Elemental Resistances and Absorb Chance debuffs are also options in the MCM.
I recommend using this mechanic alongside my new mod, Spell Absorption Rework - A Non-Chance Based System. Otherwise, if you have some Spell Absorption, and absorb the spell you are hit by, the debuff attached to that spell won't apply. This is fixed by the mod below:
Spell Absorption Rework - A Non-Chance Based System - A highly compatible, script-free rework of Spell Absorption. Always Regen and Resist part of a spell relative to Absorb Chance.

Mechanic III
Proportional Bleed Damage when hit by an unblocked weapon.

If hit by an unblocked weapon, players take bleed damage proportional to their health.
Note: Bleed damage in gif above is exaggerated for the sake of the visual. By default, Bleeding does 1% of your max health over 3 seconds.
More Details:
Spoiler:  
Show

  • Armor and Magic resist are only half of the puzzle; as levels increase, so too does the health of the player. To address this, I implemented on-hit bleeding damage to unblocked attacks that is proportional to the player's health.
  • Bleeding does by default 2% of your max health over 3 seconds (Bleed damage and duration can be changed in the MCM) and refreshes each unblocked hit. This can add up quick as 8 stacks of bleeding damage would equate to about a quarter of your max health.
  • Implementation is 100% Scriptless.
  • So now, you cant just stack health in response to the armor lowering; you actually need to play skillfully in combat.
From a realism perspective, think of this mechanic like blood loss. While your health increases as you level up, I would think the amount of blood in your body remains the same. (Greater Health Pool != More Blood in the Body). So, the blood you lose should always impact your health proportionally. 

Mechanic IV
Healing Debuff when hit by an unblocked weapon.
This mechanic is disabled by default in the MCM. If enabled, when hit by an unblocked weapon, healing spells have 50% reduced effectiveness temporarily. (Basically, it's like Grievous Wounds from League of Legends)
  • The idea of this mechanic to stop the player from being able win every fight through heal spam. If enabled, you must momentarily retreat to heal yourself efficiently.
  • Optionally, the debuff can be extended to Absorb spells and enchantments as well. Makes absorb health enchants on weapons significantly less OP as you can't just button mash anymore.
  • Potions are unaffected by the healing debuff. I recommend instead using a mod that plays an animation when drinking a potion. (So it becomes dangerous to use them in the middle of combat).



More on differences between the feel of Vanilla combat vs Engaging combat:
Spoiler:  
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A common criticism I see is that being high level only brings disadvantages with Engaging Combat installed, in fact is is quite the opposite.
Without Engaging Combat, high levels players are functionally invincible. There is little to no chance at dying to low level enemies.
  • This gets boring fast and can feel unrealistic, see below:

With Engaging Combat, high-level players remain nearly invincible—provided they play smart. Higher health and armor now translate to two key advantages:
1. You won’t be one-shot by powerful attacks.
2. You’ll have more chances to recover if you make a mistake.

You are still the strongest character in the game at high levels, but playing recklessly will result in death from even the weakest NPCs. You will either need to approach each situation with caution or will need to take the time to play defensively/retreat after a few unblocked hits to allow your armor rating to return to full strength.

Another neat quirk of Engaging Combat is that it gives the player a reason to go over the armor rating cap where there wasn't any before. For instance, If you are dropped to 50% AR from 567AR (the vanilla armor cap) that will put you at 283.5 AR. However, if you drop to 50% from 800AR (well beyond the vanilla cap), you will have 400AR which is a very substantial difference.


For animals and creatures check out: Kykvendi - Dangerous Creatures - Engaging Combat

⚙️Compatibility
Engaging Combat is lightweight, has no vanilla record edits, and is compatible with all mods. (Including other combat mods). Additionally, this mod's mechanics are 100% scriptless, meaning you can disable/uninstall it without problem. You can also install it whenever. A new game is NOT required.

This mod is fully compatible with Requiem too, as that is what I play with. No patches needed. :)
🛠️Requirements & Installation
To install, first ensure that have the following requirements:
SPID
Keyword Item Distributor (KID) 
SkyPatcher (Only needed if using the MR debuff mechanic)
Scrambled Bugs
  • Engaging Combat relies on spells applied by Perk Entry points for its mechanics. You must set Perk Entry Points: Apply Multiple Spell = true in ScrabledBugs.json. If you use Requiem, you likely already have this enabled as its required by Requiem).
  • For VR Players, use Poached Bugs VR instead of Scrambled Bugs. Set perkEntryMultipleSpellsApplication = true in PoachedBugsVR.ini
NEW: A non-Scrambled Bugs version of Engaging Combat is available in the optional files. The non-Scrambled Bugs version requires Core Impact Framework.

After you have met the requirements just install the mod through your preferred mod manager and enable "madEngagingCombat.esp". Position in load order is irrelevant.

Use STB Widgets if you want to see debuffs on your HUD.

Last Thing...
Due note that Engaging Combat's mechanics only effect the player and not other NPCs. I toyed around with the idea of implementing that but the problem there is, while you and I know how Engaging Combat works, the enemy AI does not. The Debuff Mechanics in the hands of the player makes them even more OP, which is opposite to the purpose of the mod.

My other Mods:
Gameplay Mods
(Click a mod's image to be taken its page)






Quest/New Dialogue Mods
(Click a mod's image to be taken its page)
   


   


Requiem-Related Mods:

Requiem - Auto NPC Patcher -  Makes any mod playable in Requiem. A Synthesis Patcher and SPID configuration that adjusts the stats, perks, and levels of NPCs added by any mod to be in line with Requiem's Balancing.

 Requiem - Unofficial Reqtificator Lite - My recreation of the Reqtificator in Synthesis. Allows you to get over the 254 master limit easily.

My Requiem Patches:
Requiem - Reqtificator 254 Master Limit Workaround - xEdit and Mod Organizer
Requiem - Ryn's Mehrunes Dagon's Shrine
Requiem - Vampire Armor Expansion - Vampire Clothing Expansion

Attacko's Daedra Integration and Rebalance Series - COMPATIBLE WITH REQUIEM - My series of mods that rebalances and integrates Attacko's Daedra into the world in a lore-friendly way.
Abhorrent Behemoth • Anthropoid Daedroth • Bipedal Charyboid • Fire-Tounged Daedroths • Sulking Twilight