About this mod
A lightweight combat add-on mod that adds circling behaviour to enemies. Now, group combat is more fair and fun for the player, as enemies will no longer attack all at once without a pattern. Lightweight, compatible other combat overhaul mods, and can be turned off or tweaked using the MCM. Requires SKSE64, SPID, and PapyrusUtil to be installed
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
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Translations
- Russian
- Mandarin
- French
- Changelogs
MCM Menu Logo art made by EskoONE, check his profile out!
This is a lightweight, efficient scripted mod that can be entirely turned off and on through the MCM.
By the word "behaviour", it is used in the definition of how NPCs act, not how this mod is implemented. There is no relation between this mod and animations or Nemesis behaviour engine
Description:
Ever found yourself getting overwhelmed by groups of enemies? With the release of many combat overhaul mods like Skysa, Valravn, and Ultimate Combat, modded Skyrim has progressed greatly over the years.
Gone are the days of vanilla hack and slash where you and the other guy just stayed in the same general area hitting each other until one of you dropped.
Thanks to many mods, there is now attack commitment, telegraphed moves, group tactics, stagger, dodging, wounds, poise, and more brutal NPC AI.
But vanilla skyrim was never designed around the modded combat most of us have today, so there is one problem when you are fighting groups of enemies; there's no circling.
Because of that, usually, all the enemies attack all at once, however they want. Which is deadly and does not give the player a fair fighting chance. In group combat, there are too many patterns to keep track of and too many attacks coming from all directions. This usually leads to instant death, especially in dungeons where you have no space to kite enemies.
The amount of enemies that circle and the time window they each have to attack can be changed from the included MCM menu. Tweak it to your own liking.
What This Mod Does:
This mod adds a system of circling to enemies, so that they do not attack you and swarm you all at once. Instead, some of them will circle you and wait for the opportune moment to attack.
With "Wait Your Turn" Enabled:
A Fighting Chance:
You can see how the enemies are now not only spread out, but also not attacking at once. Only some bandits are actively aggressive, the rest are circling and loosely following the player.
In a way, these enemies are waiting for their turn while circling. Waiting for what? To kill the player of course.
You have more space to maneuver, and have more options available in combat. Will you counter and kill the enemy that accidentally strayed away from the others while trying to chase you? Or will you go for the enemies around the sides, where you have less directions to watch for incoming attacks?
You Decide What You Want From Fighting Multiple Enemies:
This mod's aim is not to make fighting multiple enemies easy for the player, it's to make it fairer and to give the resourceful player a chance of survival. How good of a chance it is, you decide by tweaking the values in the MCM:
The amount of enemies that circle and the time window they each have to attack can be changed from the included MCM menu.
For example, go for short attack window intervals and a higher simultaneous enemy cap if you want to keep yourself guessing and alert about who will attack next and from which direction.
If you want group combat to be more similar to AC combat, have a low simultaneous attack cap and very long windows so that attacking enemies can be countered and killed off one by one.
Does Not Affect Followers, Ranged NPCs, or Mages.
Archers that are using bows will not be affected by the circling system (that would be too big of an advantage to the player). However, if a ranged enemy switches to a melee weapon, they will automatically be integrated into the circling system. The same goes for mages.
Followers will be treated the same by enemies as they were before this mod, e.g they will duke it out amongst themselves. Followers still attract aggro from hostiles and are not limited by circling as long as they remain your ally and not an enemy.
Clean, Lightweight, Compatible, Streamlined.
ESP-FE. Compatible with all well known combat overhaul mods in existence as far as I know (Valravn, Blade and Blunt, Wildcat, Skysa, Ultimate Combat, Engarde, etc.). Only affects NPCs. Lightweight, fast, event based scripts. No polling or cloaks.
The amount of enemies that circle and the time window they each have to attack can be changed from the included MCM menu.
Can be turned off and on as many times as you want from the MCM, mid playthrough. Requires SPID and PapyrusUtil to be installed, SkyUI if you want the MCM.
Does not directly change or touch anything from the vanilla game. This includes animations, combat styles, perks, levelled lists, actors, and weapons.
Can theoretically handle circling for about 128 hostile, player targeting NPCs provided the pc is strong enough and the engine limit is not reached.
Without "Wait Your Turn" and with some combat overhauls installed:
You can see that without this mod, the bandits give you no windows of opportunity, no space to maneuver. They just swarm you and all attack at once in a tight clump. Without stagger mods, it's a hard situation to get out of. With stagger mods, it's a death sentence. Indoors and in dungeons, it's even worse because of the tight spaces and corners.
Installation:
Requires SKSE64, PapyrusUtil and SPID (Spell Perk Item Distributor) to be installed. SkyUI is required only if you want the MCM (Mod Configuration Menu)
Compatible with both AE and SE edition, just make sure to get the correct version of the requirements for your Skyrim edition.
Uninstallation:
Even though this mod is lightweight and not script heavy, it still does contain some scripts, so I would not recommend uninstalling this mid-game/mid-playthrough/mid-save.
You can turn off this mod (turn off all parts of it except the Menu), using the MCM. You can also turn it on afterwards any time. If you change your mind about this and it turns out you dislike it, please turn it off for the rest of the playthrough instead of uninstalling, it is safer that way.
Acknowledgements (in no specific order):
- EskoOne for the MCM Menu Logo art which he graciously made for this mod.
- powerofthree for SPID
- exiledviper and meh321 for PapyrusUtil
- Distar, for being a good person that has supported me and given me advice.
- The r/Skyrim discord server for being a wonderful community that I can always have fun with.
- The guy who made this very nice and descriptive reddit post about circling, from which I was able to gain good information.
- Based Department. You know who you are.