N'Garde. Vanilla-Friendly Parry and Active Block.

[inner hare]

yeah

I see

so it's about the other settings

the ones I don't use

[rustic latch]

yeah

[inner hare]

I see, I see...

[rustic latch]

Actually, it may be fine

if we leave 50% impact, capped at 100% fatigue

[inner hare]

may be fair

you don't even have to explain it

I don't want to guess the number of players who will do what I did here

but it won't be high

lol

[rustic latch]

lmao

yeah

actually no,

local formulaFatigueEffects = {
    ["Fatigue effects limited to 50%"] = function(value)
        if value > 1 then
            return min(value,1.2)
        else
            return min(value * 2, 1)
        end
    end,
    ["Without fatigue effects"] = function(value)
        return 1
    end,
    ["With fatigue effects"] = function(value)
        return min(max(value, 0.15),1.2)
    end
}

this will work

let me just hoist that 1.2 in constants table

all it'll be pretty

[inner hare]

I know from experience that perfect parries at skill 40-45 ATM are absolutely manageable, so I don't think that the suggested changes will make things too hard or sth. It will just push the ceiling a bit and give more room for character development. It may even be too generous post-change but since it's only at 100% Fatigue, it's best not to get overboard. Values are easy to change once the formulas themselves are solid, anyway.

[rustic latch]

Yeah, from my own playing - I've noticed that with all the fatigue drains, costs and portion of damage being converted to fatigue - it quickly becomes very hard to perfect parry

[inner hare]

which is good

[rustic latch]

Granted my current char is not purely melee focused

[inner hare]

this shouldn't be the norm

[rustic latch]

~60 ish longblade, and 50 ish block

[inner hare]

normal parries are still very useful

[rustic latch]

easy on full fatigue - very hard as fight goes on

[inner hare]

seems right

[rustic latch]

Keeps the spirit of the game too

[inner hare]

yeah. Don't hit mudcrabs at 0 Fatigue

[true umbra]

Is this the latest version?

[rustic latch]

Yes, currently

no more RC status, needs a bit more work

so we are back to < 1.0

[true umbra]

[inner hare]

ah, yes, tgm fun

[rustic latch]

yeah, but that's not the point - notice how he sidesteps the walls

and ofc - need to pet the scrib first

[inner hare]

yes, very important

and movement is an improvement

to be sure!

[rustic latch]

Current logic - if too close to the enemy - find possible movement directions on the navmesh. try move back -> If can't move back -> try move right -> if can't move right -> try move left, otherwise don't do anything and leave it up to AI

should detect ledges too

but need to test that

Need to find a good place without railings to test

oh, ffs, why are there invisible stairs clipped inside foundations in BCOM ebonheart, no wonder it lags

(unrelated)

Not perfect, but it works. On flat roof, he'll probably be able to circle me

[inner hare]

BTW a minor suggestion for keeping that Vanilla spirit alive: since AGI and LCK affect block chance in Vanilla, I think that can add them to general parry defence (I don't want to fuck with parry window further and parry defence is more universal) in a subtle way. I think that there is a very simple way of doing that. Currently you use mainskillx0,65 and secondaryskillx0,35. Add (AGI-30)/5+(LCK-40)/10 to that. The effect should be subtle but fun. A starting character with minimal values (AGI 30 and LCK 40) will have 0 bonus. A character with 100 AGI and LCK 40 will have 14 bonus and a character with 100 AGI and 100 LCK will have 20 bonus. It's nice but nothing massive.

[rustic latch]

You know you're going into mod's credits, do you?

I like that

Let me test the pathfinding on a flat roof, and I'll get that in

Ah, ofc he doesn't side step. There's no navmesh on roofs

so he just reaches the ledge and stays there

but - it's an improvement over jumping

[inner hare]

This mod is great. I want to help and I'm not from the government, so it should be fine

[rustic latch]

I think this is fine

Hmmm. I can't really tell "no obstacle, but no navmesh == ledge" from "no obstacle and no navmesh == flat roof"

I think I'll leave this as is

[inner hare]

It should be a big improvement in 90% of cases

[rustic latch]

Actually feels half-way natural

enemy circling you when there's nowhere to fall back to feels like it'll work fine

Not jumping off is the main thing anyway

[inner hare]

Yeah

[maiden tangle]

Looks very natural to me, nice! Have you tested the guards behavior with more than one summon?

[rustic latch]

I did not - but then their behaviour would be reliant on the main target

and main target on my end is assigned when combat package target changes

[inner hare]

They may switch mid-combat

[rustic latch]

so if they are targeting a summon - they'll dance around it

[rustic latch]

I read that event

[inner hare]

Ok

[rustic latch]

and reassign primary

I had a test in vivec arena with 10 necrom ordinators vs 10 dremora lords

seemed fine

need to retest that at some point

MW doesn't shine at mass combat anyway

[rustic latch]

Bigger battle than final quest of oblivion btw

[inner hare]

Such fights pretty much never happen

[rustic latch]

:P

[inner hare]

4-5 actors is pretty much the max you can encounter in like 95% of situations and usually it will be 1-3

[rustic latch]

Yup, which is why I've tested it

nothing broke, meaning - the 1v2s will likely be fine

[inner hare]

There was a "battle" in Skyrim for Whiterun and it was a joke.

[rustic latch]

Yah

TES can't do battles

well, maybe modern MW on OpenMW could if someone wrote new AI behaviour packages

Right then

let me test for ten more minutes. Cleanup the code

and I'll put up a version with new incombat movement and defence formula changes

[tough juniper]

this is amazing, fair dues

[maiden tangle]

I use the mod Morrowind Comes Alive (a bit outdated now) and it let's you randomly spawn bandits in cities and towns from time to time. You can select how many should be spwaned to your liking and I went with 20. Similar feeling of the battle of Whiterun or the one with the giant Oblivion gate next to Bruma. The Mercy mod already works quite good alongside it.
Bandits and guards fightings in the streets, the player character in between. Only the regular commoners behaving a bit unimpressed while their town is getting attacked.

[rustic latch]

that's fire

Speaking of

I've just realized - the ledge avoidance is not just an improvement over previous N'Garde behaviour

they are jumping/falling quite often in vanilla too

and now they shouldn't

[inner hare]

oh yeah, it should lead to fewer deaths due to fall dmg or getting stuck because of falls

[rustic latch]

There's this one place in TR

where a telvanni(?) necromancer has killed an ordinator in mourning. Never found any quests associated wtih it. But the bitch is there wearing the deadmans armor with three skeletons

last time I fought them - all three jumped off the waterfall

that theoretically should be much less likely to happen now

[inner hare]

sometimes I'm annoyed that level/encounter designers ignore obvious pitfalls and put enemies in places which are very hard to navigate for the AI

[rustic latch]

yeah. Importantly - this obstacle detection only applies if you are too close to them

so still can happen

[inner hare]

I saw so many caves where removing one rock, changing a ramp or providing an easier way of getting out of the water would help with pathfinding a lot

[rustic latch]

but I try to mess with that as little as possible, just for compatibility sake

[rustic latch]

Oh yeah, quite a lot of those

Hmmm. Should I teach them to try and rush past player if other three directions are blocked?

nah, too tricky - maybe later

[inner hare]

it's ok if sometimes they get backed into a corner

[rustic latch]

should be quite tricky to do now under normal circumstances

but yeah, I'll leave it be

[inner hare]

yeah, it was just annoying that they didn't choose the obvious routes where they were available

[rustic latch]

yup

new debug message format btw:

Perfect parry window and "reflected fatigue" parts only show up if applicable

0.8.3

• Block Skill description update to match new behaviour
• • Optional omwaddon to match NCG skill description
• Fully disabled distance keeping for enemies that can't parry due to lacking correct tool (ranged mostly)
• In combat fencer pathfinding update - obstacle and ledge detection. Shouldn't jump off ledges when advanced at, should be much harder to back into a corner
• Parry defence formula update: now adds (AGI-30)/5+(LCK-40)/10 before applying fatigue effects
• further lowered perfect parry window ratios 0.35 -> 0.33, 0.13 -> 0.1
• Cybvep now in credits for formula testing and design/suggestions
• fatigue effects part of all formulas now caps over-bonus from fortify fatigue at 20% for a total of 120%
• slightly better debug messages

[maiden tangle]

Excellent! That justifies a potential new mod for kicking with knockback

https://klipy.com/gifs/300-kick

[rustic latch]

Kicking is tricky. Legs are not rendered in first person normally

So 1st person animation is - I'm not even sure how

And posted this already - but:

[maiden tangle]

I know about this mod, but didn't tried it out yet. From reading how it accomplishes to make legs visible, especially for all clothes and armors, it sounds a bit tedious.

Maybe a h2h punch or magic push knockback would be better then. I know about Detail Devil's recent approach to random Wabbajack staff effects, which included a knockback mechanic already.

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/56625

[rustic latch]

Oh yeah, a punch/push or a shield bash or a spell will work without trickery

I've seen this mod, but I'm not runnng it, iirc it was incompatible (clipping) with some other stuff I use

[rustic latch]

Shield bash will still need an animation, but that's much easier to achieve

[inner hare]

sth with the way Stat window extender/NCG place those bars? I'm sure that it's solvable.

[maiden tangle]

A bash function in general might not be hard to implement then. It's probably more about the balancing.

[rustic latch]

Nah, I'm just showcasing new description for those that didn't see it yet

rendering seems fine?

[inner hare]

ah, ok 😄

eager to test the new stuff

[rustic latch]

Do let me know

Seems like nothing blew up

and only major changes are to pathfinding

[inner hare]

could... could we be close to RC?

https://tenor.com/view/good-movies-rule-gmr-avengers-end-game-movie-don't-give-me-hope-hawkeye-gif-9699367132154830787

[rustic latch]

unironically, yes, but I'm not going there yet

all new items on to do from this week are closed

except for documentation

[inner hare]

some modders never do the last bit 🤡

[rustic latch]

^ mostly from stuff you've reported

[inner hare]

my favourite case is when a mod is complex and all it has is sth like 2-3 sentences for its description

and I have to wonder what the hell it truly does

and then you find all those random changes...

[rustic latch]

Yeah, I'll need to rewrite the feature list and descriptions

[inner hare]

you already described the general features, at least

[rustic latch]

Mostly yeah

Just need to go over them and make sure nothing is outdated or missing

Not today probably - have a bad headache since I woke up, but soon

Once we get closed to release, I'll also probably ask for screenshots and videos of mod in action. I can record quite a few myself. But going back and forth with animation replacers etc is going to be a pain

Zwej made a good point a few weeks back - that disabling replacers may be a good call for mod videos

And I kind of agree

although - I don't think anyone does that

[inner hare]

I got this after setting reset

[rustic latch]

oh fucking hell

I've renamed it back, didn't it?

[inner hare]

once I change the setting, it's no longer there

so which one is the correct one?

[rustic latch]

yeah

"with" is the correct one

[inner hare]

ok

so default needs to be changed

[rustic latch]

yah, I thought about renaming the setting - realized it will fuck it up for people that don't reset the settings and reverted it back

but missed one place

this should do it

That however warrants a check. Why did VSCode's "find and replace everywhere" didn't find it?

[rustic latch]

Btw, each time I look at your screenshots I fear that I've broke something. No borders and no separator bars is a choice, right?

Hmmmm. need to adjust skill gain scale for parried missed attacks

and maybe skill gain in general

chained perfect parries level you up way too fast I feel

And as a general observation - I think the general flow of combat, especially melee 1v1 is exactly where I want it

[inner hare]

Yeah, this may need a nerf because it wouldn't be a hit

[rustic latch]

No way for player to know that, and still the timing is right if it's perfect

hmmm

yeah, I know what to do

[inner hare]

the player doesn't need to know. It's automatic

you still get the perfect parry

and all the effects

it's even generous that you get the parry if it's not a hit, but otherwise the flow would be off

[rustic latch]

yah

Ok, I'm thinking fatigue cost for parrying a miss down to 25% from 33%, and skill gain - 10% for weak parry, and 60% for perfect

[inner hare]

you mean, a bonus for perfect parry? In addition to dmg negation

[rustic latch]

nah, the skill gain specifically

capped at 60%

[inner hare]

uh, lower than standard vanilla block?

[rustic latch]

For blocking a miss? yeah

[inner hare]

ah!

a miss

I get you

I thought you mean a standard hit

then fine

[rustic latch]

normally perfect parry is 150% + damage /400

[inner hare]

ok

I get you now

yeah, fine with less gain for misses, absolutely

it's behind the scenes. Nothing changes in the player's behaviour

and that's the point

[rustic latch]

yup

indeed, and parrying a miss already costs way less fatigue, so player kinda can tell if they are paying attention

but doesn't disrupt the flow

[inner hare]

Combat flow is excellent

[rustic latch]

So currently:
perfect parry a hit: 150% + negated damage /400
weak parry a hit: 100% + (0 to 99% depending on how long ago perfect parry window closed) + negated damage/400

parrying a miss has no damage negated, and if I drop base values by -90% - it seems about right. need to maybe limit the timing impact though

good that wrote it down

right now well timed weak parry is more skill than a perfect one

need to halve that

ah no

I'm a dumbass - we substract 0 to 99 percent, not add

all good

[inner hare]

As for skill gain per dmg negated, in SE it's not based on nominal numbers, but relative to player HP. It's avoided raw damage (no AR) vs player HP. Therefore, you gain more for blocking powerful hits than weak ones, but somebody who is weak will still gain more from it than a high lvl char.

[rustic latch]

Hmmm.

[inner hare]

Check armor, it's same thing

[rustic latch]

I can get negated damage percentage of total hp

and use that

[inner hare]

here you can see it in action

[rustic latch]

so if you block an attack that would one shot you otherwise - big gains

[inner hare]

raw damage 1 - 10% (minimal gain based on settings)

higher dmg - better gain

but not based on absolutes

[rustic latch]

yeah, makes sense

[inner hare]

only the Sith deal in absolutes

[rustic latch]

I can't read SE settings

but can do something roughly in-line for what I pass to it

[inner hare]

I don't think you need to. SE just applies caps for min and max. However, you can check the formula used there for Block and Armor.

and use some of that

• timing

as a mix

there will be healthy variety with it all

[rustic latch]

yeah, I'll jsut replace negated damage/400 with (negated damage/totalHP)/2 or something

or maybe current hp? So blocking in life ot death situations is worth more? 🤔

[inner hare]

maybe let's not overcomplicate it 😄

[rustic latch]

fair

I do have that tendency

[inner hare]

you will have: raw damage vs player HP, timing, weak parry and misses

that's a lot

[tough juniper]

that would make a good perk

[inner hare]

you can work with that

[inner hare]

great idea

for a submod

or future expansion

[rustic latch]

I want negated damage, not raw

[inner hare]

ok

[rustic latch]

I think it'll be fine

[inner hare]

but before talking AR into account would be best

[rustic latch]

am lost. What exactly?

[inner hare]

if you are not doing it already

[inner hare]

life and death thing

some bonus for that

[rustic latch]

ah

[inner hare]

it fits a perk, that's a good idea

obv not your 1.0 or anything, lol

[rustic latch]

Maybe? More xp when blocking at low hp seems like an odd perk

However, it fits at least, as that's something I'll never need to apply to NPCs

[inner hare]

make that a bonus when blocking at low hp and it's better

[rustic latch]

so current perk framewok will work

[inner hare]

could actually be both skill gain and bonus efficiency

at low HP

for a perk

everything is possible

[rustic latch]

if it's efficiency it will have to apply to NPCs .

[inner hare]

yeah, but I think that should be the goal for the future

for perks in general

unless they have real drawbacks or are heavily conditional or sth

[rustic latch]

for sure - just auto apply them if conditions are met

^ whole mess of actors scripts probably though

[inner hare]

combat flow is nice btw . Nothing broke. Skill description works as well.

[rustic latch]

Not my headache however, at least for now (Sorry, Blur if you are reading this)

[tough juniper]

yeah i kinda meant that kind of complexity could make good future expansions as perks, something like take more dmg but higher block chance at low health, i havent thought it through entirely, but choices that affect your gameplay is the key, as cybvep has said. iirc theres a dark souls ring that does something like that, or is it a pokemon item🤔

[rustic latch]

Got it

[tough juniper]

but aye, i figure if you get this solid enough, people are bound to want to make perk packs for it in future

[inner hare]

absolutely

and when we are at the stage of perfecting SE scaled gains, skill descriptions and thinking about perks

it's really a good sign

https://tenor.com/view/almost-there-almost-gif-6009178

[rustic latch]

Still need to figure out what breaks the mod in Path of The Incarnate

🤷‍♂️

but oh well

we'll see

Also - applying AR to negated damage is cursed

I'll either have to reimplement I.Combat.ApplyArmor locally, or give it a bogus attack object that I'll then read.

well... the latter may be workable

[inner hare]

You don't want to apply it, though

[rustic latch]

?

I thought you meant I should

[inner hare]

The opposite

Dmg before AR

[rustic latch]

to the portion of damage that is used in the skill gaiin

ah

that's easy then

all good

[inner hare]

Otherwise, you get fucked by AR

[rustic latch]

I don't apply AR - handlers downstream should handle it

[inner hare]

Ok

AR shouldn't lower skill gain because it's unintuitive and unfun

[rustic latch]

completely fair

and since you're blocking damage before it even gets to the armor

skillGainScale = skillGainScale + ((negatedDamage.health / health(self.defendant).base) / 2) + ((negatedDamage.fatigue / fatigue(self.defendant).base)/2)
thinking this looks good

limit impact, still get big gains (up to cap) if the damage is big

[inner hare]

btw avoided Fatigue dmg is treated as 50% by default in SE and I think it's a good idea since Fatigue alone is less dangerous

[rustic latch]

/4 then?

makes sense

[inner hare]

yeah

no bugs so far

there is one but

😄

[rustic latch]

?

[inner hare]

keeping distance seems to be too weak for spear wielders and such

they don't try to avoid you too often

they often keep very close

sidestepping is ok

you should be able to witness this easily in tests

stay close to them

[rustic latch]

yah, the min distance was edited, and I think I need to revert that

[inner hare]

yeah

[rustic latch]

thanks for reminding me

[inner hare]

other things seem to be working well

tried various weapon types

they feel good

one thing which could be improved is that shield guard on animation could be more noticeable

dunno if it's easy to do

but sometimes I have trouble recognizing if the enemy is keeping the shield up or not

a very minor thing

in Vanilla you had no guide at all, just RNG

[rustic latch]

If they are moving, right?

[inner hare]

yes

[rustic latch]

yeah

that's the big one

I need to try and remake the animation

it needs to include all body parts belt up to look ok

[inner hare]

I think it's the only thing that seems off animation-wise

other animations give enough feedback

[rustic latch]

That''s the only animation that wasn't made for this mod specifically, shame I wanted to use it as a hommage to "Shields Up"

[inner hare]

well, it's a different mod, so you don't have to

you can still give the mod credit for the general idea

inspiration

[rustic latch]

Yeah

I'll see what I can do with the shield anim

It's funny - I can sit neck deep in code for an entire day and not notice. Blender is like pulling teeth sometimes though

[inner hare]

as for future perks, things like shield bash could easily end up as perks as well. Same with other stuff like feints or KCD-style master strike (although I would Morrowindify it and make it a little bit less based on player's dexterity)

and no, I'm not even proposing that for 1.0, lmao

if things go well, you should have this out in the next few days

[rustic latch]

(although I would Morrowindify it and make it a little bit less based on player's dexterity)
At the moment - I've got no clue how I would even implement that

lmao

feints and shield bash will need animations

[inner hare]

yeah

since those are active abilities, they fit perks

[rustic latch]

Yah. I've tested that btw, sort of. I can intercept the left click when parry is held and instead of starting an attack do something else

But without animations - it's a bit ass

[inner hare]

ofc

[rustic latch]

will also need a bit of an update on how I handle held parry animation

[inner hare]

there could also be some sort of counterattack, e.g. attacking the enemy mid-swing if you time it right and pass the usual hit roll. Such things can be cool. Again, no pressure for 1.0.

[rustic latch]

Nah, none of that is happening for 1.0

that's for sure

[inner hare]

yeah... so much work and so many potential new bugs, lmao

[rustic latch]

I'll need to gather more feedback and take a little break doing something else for a bit after release and initial post-release bugfixing. Cause this has been a lot already

I mean, I'm a software engineer. But the domain is very different, and doing this for my second ever mod certainly has been... a choice

[inner hare]

you will have a meaty Nexus portfolio

[rustic latch]

Speaking of nexus portfolio - downloads on my first mods suddenly picked up, and I've got no clue why

Oh well- the more the better

[tough juniper]

its a great little mod tbf. really nice and tasteful addition

[dusk palm]

wtf
is that a dodge roll

[tough juniper]

https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/1377450837651099738 from this mod

[lime spire]

Has this been released yet?

nvm I found a RC.

[karmic citrus]

https://tenor.com/view/nodding-shea-brennan-sam-elliott-1883-i-see-gif-24741937

[rustic latch]

Just grab the latest archive from the thread. Current is 0.8.3. I'm not too proud to admit thay RC versions were not ready to be called RC

[lime spire]

Where is it?

[rustic latch]

#1482416741077356692 message

[waxen cliff]

.arrean

this should do it

Attachment(s)

NGarde.0.8.3.1b.zip

Linked by @​.arrean from #N'Garde. Vanilla-Friendly Parry and Active Block. Beta · Apr 18, 2026, 2:30 PM

[lime spire]

Thanks.

What is the point of ngardencgdescription?

[rustic latch]

#1482416741077356692 message

[waxen cliff]

.arrean

0.8.3

• Block Skill description update to match new behaviour
• • Optional omwaddon to match NCG skill description
• Fully disabled distance keeping for enemies that can't parry due to lacking correct tool (ranged mostly)
• In combat fencer pathfinding update - obstacle and ledge detection. Shouldn't jump off ledges when advanced at, should be much harder to back into a corner
• Parry defence formula update: now adds (AGI-30)/5+(LCK-40)/10 before applying fatigue effects
• further lowered perfect parry window ratios 0.35 -> 0.33, 0.13 -> 0.1
• Cybvep now in credits for formula testing and design/suggestions
• fatigue effects part of all formulas now caps over-bonus from fortify fatigue at 20% for a total of 120%
• slightly better debug messages

Linked by @​.arrean from #N'Garde. Vanilla-Friendly Parry and Active Block. Beta · Apr 18, 2026, 2:09 PM

[lime spire]

Oh I see hmm...

[rustic latch]

Only enable it if you run natural character growth

No reason otherwise

[lime spire]

I use PotentialCharacterProgressionOpenMW with the ncg scaling setting so that should also work.. I think...

[rustic latch]

It is Fallchildrens roll mod. I've updated it a bit to add double-tap-to-roll

[rustic latch]

It won't let you run it, I think. Cause it depends on ncg.omwaddon

[lime spire]

hmm.

[rustic latch]

It's just the description

So don't worry much about it

[rustic latch]

I got to my PC.
Basically the difference between having that additional ngardecncgdescription is between this

and this

that's it

[lime spire]

Oh.

I thought it was going to give incorrect information.

[rustic latch]

Nah, it just adds the "develops" line that is relevant to "natural character growth"

[lime spire]

does natural character growth change the descriptions like that normally?

[rustic latch]

Yes

But base description is base - which is incorrect when N'Garde is installed

Block skill allows one to use shields to block any melee attack. A successful block removes all damage from the attack. - base game description

[lime spire]

I see...

Thanks.

[rustic latch]

So, realistically - don't worry about it. Nothing will break. You should still enable ngarde.omwaddon - as it disables native block mechanic

[rustic latch]

P for Progress
F for fucking hell, why did I cram so much into those formulas

[inner hare]

It's ok since it's already done

[rustic latch]

Yes, but now I need to explain all of it in as close to plain english as I can

[rustic latch]

https://tenor.com/view/finished-elijah-wood-lord-of-the-rings-lava-fire-gif-5894611

Which is good, cause I've found an error in stagger cooldown calc.

[rustic latch]

** 0.8.4 **

• slightly lower skill gain from parries
• Lower skill gain when parrying an attack that was going to miss
• Skill gain from negated damage is now affected by how big of a portion of total HP/FP the damage was.
• increased minimum distance for melee combat a bit
• fatigue drain condition fix - now active if either static or scaling drain is non-zero in settings.
• stagger cooldown now correctly low for low skill targets. Was incorrectly taking max instead of min between calculated value and maximum cooldown, so it was always 2.2 second, now properly ranges between 0.4 and 2.2 depending on enemy stats

[rustic latch]

https://youtu.be/pWqSDuH_u9w

Have a little taste of what I've put together

However - I feel like we are mostly there.

Bugs that were found are squashed. Movement logic is better. ToDo is closed. Anything else that I'd want/can do is a big new feature, and I don't want to take any new ones of that sort yet

So, I'm thinking release soon ^tm

Also, importantly, mod is in a state where video won't need to be redone

At this point - I'm sending out a general call - I need screenshots of your characters parrying stuff, or just generally holding guard

[rustic latch]

I've been starting at mod's T0D0 and begging it to convince me that mod is not ready.

I guess, the last question is - @here, has anyone who playtested encountered any issues on the latest, or second latest versions?

Cause if not - it may be time to send it

[rustic latch]

I'm still unable to locate the issue within Path of The Incarnate, installing it locally would be a pain however

[jagged hamlet]

- "All attacks hit" mode, disabled by default - a missed attack becomes a "fumbled attack" deals a maximum of 20% damage and doesn't grant skill
Why not grant the same part of XP than the damage ratio?

[rustic latch]

Ah, thank you for pointing that one out

that part is outdated.

I do grant XP on parrying a miss, whether that setting is enabled or not

however - this was with my testing of actual attacks granting xp - I didn't do anything with it, and I think base game doesn't recognise them as successful

[jagged hamlet]

Yeah you'll need to trigger the gain yourself

However I think weapon skills already increase fast enough without adding such miss gains

[rustic latch]

can I send skill use to another actor? Or will I have to add an event for that?

[rustic latch]

Yeah, probably doesn't need to be in there

- "All attacks hit" mode, disabled by default - a missed attack becomes a "fumbled attack" which deals a maximum of 20% damage and doesn't grant skill XP to attacker

then

[jagged hamlet]

The SkillProgression interface is only from the current actor

[rustic latch]

yeah, if I did that -would have to send an event back to attacker and trigger gain in the handler

I've added a minimum to the skill scale btw, so I never send 0 or less. I see you've added a guard on your end too, but just in case

[inner hare]

it's en garde, not guard

🤡

Sorry. Couldn't resist a terrible pun.

[rustic latch]

I thought I fucked up in the video for a minute, and was terrified

[inner hare]

one more test, then

https://tenor.com/view/one-more-time-gif-24625270

[rustic latch]

Hmmm. Anothrt thing. If more than one skill is involved in parrying (all the weapons) do you think I should split skill gain in 2? I think I should

right now it sends full value to both, and for shields e.g. - the gains are slower cause it's just one skill and the value is the same

[inner hare]

Then split is fair

[rustic latch]

yup, let me add that

[inner hare]

Oookkk

[eager crane]

would the old ones be ok?

[rustic latch]

Should be fine, those animations haven't changed in a while

thank you

I'll take the shield one

[inner hare]

https://tenor.com/view/cat-centurion-roman-soldier-sword-gif-6943842504016808159

[rustic latch]

0.8.5

• 50ms quicker reaction time on quick mode.
• Readme update,
• skill gain scale split in two if two skills are used for parry
• license update
• wiki updates
• credits update

I'm not renaming it to RC

[inner hare]

No bugs so far. Everything runs smoothy. Skill gains look nice. Combat flow is very good.

Mod seems to be in a good place. I think it's finally time to add it to my main save.

[rustic latch]

Excellent

well, then. I think it's time to send it.

N'Garde. Vanilla-Friendly Parry and Active Block. 1.0

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/58658

[rustic latch]

Well, and I'm being told that apparently it works on the test build of Path of The Incarnate, so that's good news

[jagged hamlet]

Spears' parry arc at 160 is the same as long swords, wouldn't arc value be proportional to weapon reach? Which could be automatically computed

[inner hare]

reach is tricky in MW since it's not always coherent when we include all the weapons from Vanilla and popular mods. It's also not what you would always expect as some things were ignored, e.g. 2H swords have same reach as 1H longswords and 1H shortswords and 2H warhammers have higher reach than normal but 2H axes don't.

[rustic latch]

That's a good call, but in game reach of 2h swords is ass

and just mostly doesn't correspond well to weapon's actual size

[inner hare]

it's best to keep it based on weapon type for now

it's generic enough

and if somebody uses mods that change weapon's reach or adds new weapons with different reach, it will still be compatible with no new balance issues

[rustic latch]

Yeah, I may tweak those values as feedback comes in

maybe increase spar and staff a bit

170-ish

but in game where there are rarely big group fights you rarely notice

[inner hare]

feels decent in-game. I fought with spears and halberds

[rustic latch]

yah

[eager crane]

not the best but here's another one for the pile

[rustic latch]

Feel free to add it to nexus, I'll approve when I get back to my PC later in the evening

[jagged hamlet]

It would be nice to differentiate spears from long spears... But we indeed would need to fix weapon reaches first

[rustic latch]

And weapon types dehardcoded

And/or

[jagged hamlet]

With 0.51 we do have read/write access to records right?

[rustic latch]

Some

not to weapon records

nor armor

[jagged hamlet]

Ah

[rustic latch]

I was considering a lua "real range" mod till I saw these are not available

https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/lua-scripting/openmw_content.html

[jagged hamlet]

Yeah, I was considering such a mod too since a long time

[inner hare]

Yeah, I think that future item overhauls need to be lua-based or they will always face the same problems with compatibility and tons of manual work with mod updates.

[cinder gulch]

Could just make a database of all the spears in Morrowind, TD and OAAB and sort by spear length

[amber slate]

Bummer the functions aren't available yet, but hopefully they will be in the future

OpenMW really seems to be picking up speed, these days

[rustic latch]

And then go manually through CS and update reach on every one

[cinder gulch]

Json gang

[amber slate]

Custom spell effects are the big reason I'm excited for .51

[jagged hamlet]

Or use yaml outputs from delta plugin

[inner hare]

I would love to get spreadsheet heavy on the items for full coherence. Plenty of balance ideas around. Definitely don't feel motivated to do it by hand, though. I got burned 20 years ago, lol.

[cinder gulch]

Can’t turn tes3conv into a yaml, I have no idea what deltaplugin does there haha

[rustic latch]

nah, that's a good call

convert esp into a json, edit

I keep forgetting that exists

[cinder gulch]

Do you think we created 900+ potions by hand for cooking?

[jagged hamlet]

JSON or YAML would work

[cinder gulch]

Can even write a lua script to generate/print a json

[amber slate]

lazy dev smh

I'm kidding, to be clear

[cinder gulch]

Work smarter not harder

[inner hare]

back in the OG days manual labor was pretty much the only option

[amber slate]

I really want to make a mod for Morrowind. I don't know what kind of mod it'd actually be, or what it'd do, but I want to

I've really fallen in love with it, and seeing all the cool stuff people are doing with OpenMW inspires me

I've taken baby steps in to learning coding/scripting in the past few days. GDScript instead of Lua, but hopefully I have a better idea of how coding actually works now

[rustic latch]

Welp, first postrelease bugfix:

1.0.1

• Fixed parry sparks for beast armatures

[inner hare]

See what beast races have to deal with? Morrowind is such a hostile place that even the first bugfix concerns them.

[rustic latch]

Goes to show how many beast players there are

although I think someone here played an argonian, but never reported it

Silly mistake on my end - named animation folder xbase_anim_kna instead of xbase_animkna

[inner hare]

I liked my Argonian playthrough very much 😄

[neon hamlet]

Bane of my modding life lmao

[cinder gulch]

Today I actually had to edit the bcc because I could not get the editor to cooperate after refreshing and reformatting the text at least 10 times

[neon hamlet]

Blind Carbon Copy?

One can spend almost as much time dicking about with the mod page editor as they do making the mod lmao

[jagged hamlet]

Now I use this tool to convert all my README.md files to Nexus format
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/100441?tab=description

[rustic latch]

Life saver

[cinder gulch]

Damn, no colors

Or YouTube video embedding which is always a nightmare

[neon hamlet]

For someone like me who hyperlinks every single mod I mention meticulously, it’s an utter bastard right enough

[cinder gulch]

You and your spoiler sections hahaha

[neon hamlet]

[lime spire]

How does the block work for creatures?

Do they use block animations?

[lime spire]

Also congrats on the release.

[strong lynx]

Heey its out, congrats Arrean! Long time in baking 🙂

[rustic latch]

Creatures don't block. Unless it's creatures that can use humanoid weapons. You won't expect a mudcrab to parry, will you?

[lime spire]

Sorry that is what I meant.

[rustic latch]

Most of those just work

[lime spire]

Because I was testing goblins out and didin't notice any blocking behaviour.

[strong lynx]

I do expect mudcrab to parry, that wouldve been pre hillarious

[lime spire]

Do they use blocking anims or is it just invisible?

[inner hare]

https://tenor.com/view/crab-knife-fight-gif-7305809

[rustic latch]

There are some that use weird rigs. Like goblins and rieklings that are blacklisted

[lime spire]

oh..

Can't goblins block in the vanilla game?

[rustic latch]

No idea

[lime spire]

They have sheilds.

[rustic latch]

They do, but you don't want me to enable that. It's bad

[lime spire]

sad.

[rustic latch]

Maybe one day

[lime spire]

Hopefully.

[lime spire]

What... does it look like?

[rustic latch]

Weird jiggle in place and out of attack range

[neon hamlet]

https://youtu.be/8mHKHKR8x6A?t=129

[inner hare]

Imagine Emperor Crab being resurrected in-game

[jagged hamlet]

Note that sublists can generate an extra empty line, but if you toggle bbcode/render twice in Nexus this fixes the issue

[scarlet vault]

genuinely worried that at first glance, I read PC as Province Cyrodiil

Anyway, mod looks amazing!! Can't believe this is my first time seeing it

great name, too

[inner hare]

nice to get your Hauling increased

[scarlet vault]

what kinda stat is that, hahaha

[tough juniper]

its a custom skill

https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/58386

[neon hamlet]

Its great! Between that, Morrowswim, Cooking, Bardcraft, and my four WIPs I currently have 8 custom skills 😄

[tough juniper]

thats so cool! yeah i'm looking forward to staves all the custom skills are great so far, apart from climbing but thats understandable

[inner hare]

also, that blight rat follower? Priceless

[tough juniper]

good ol' Blighty

[eager crane]

sadly, it doesn't move. Blight must've burned its speed stat away. Waiting for Kildozery to help out with that 😉

[tough juniper]

his legs don't work but he's got a heart of gold. just don't pet him

[copper raft]

What does the progression for blocking look like now that it's a manual skill?

[jagged hamlet]

@rustic latch maybe you could add a note in your doc about parry feats available in skill tooltips if SE is installed.
Also I wonder why you grouped NCG and SE in the compatibility section, as they are now independent mods which can work without the other one.

[rustic latch]

Will definitely add that. In a couple hours once I'm home. And will split the line for them. Just that in my mind they are still very much complimentary

[toxic dagger]

I've been a lurker here for a long while,
Congratulations Arrean on officially releasing N'Garde on Nexus ! it was very cool watching the progress of the mod over time.

[inner hare]

[rustic latch]

It was inevitable. . I have an advantage of actual mod name rolling off the tongue much better though

[rustic latch]

Thank you. I've been working on it since mid-late Feb, I think. Message count in this thread also implies we've been yapping an not keeping quiet

[rustic latch]

It's fine, I think. You get quite a lot on perfect parry and then some depending on how much damage was negated compared your total HP/FP. But I've tuned it down quite a lot, so should not be too fast

[copper raft]

Sorry, I'm asking more as someone who hasn't tried the mod yet. Vanilla block chances are dependentant on the level of the skill. Since the mod disables it as a passive skill, does it bring a form of progression in its place?

[rustic latch]

I hope you understand it's an incredibly general question:
Here https://gitlab.com/Arrean/openmwluaparry/-/wikis/Formulas

Short answer - yes, long answer see above

all the formulas listed on that page take skills, often block and stats into account.

The wiki is slightly incomplete. Need to add weapon durabiltiy loss, and how damage is negated on parry. But most other stuff is there

[rustic latch]

**1.0.2 **

• Compatibility fix for Gothic Style Knockout submitted by Foxunder
• all attacks hit mode fix. Now player can hit the creatures too (not only the other way around)
• fix for default value recognition for parry sound setting.
• Readme Update to better describe Compatibility with Skill Evolution

[rustic latch]

1.0.3

Praise directory naming conventions.

• Parry Sparks fix for female first person

[rustic latch]

Now that I've fixed some of the issues that were reported - I can expand.

Block skill affects:

1. Parry defence factor ( damage negated on weak parry)
2. NPC Reaction Time
3. Stagger Cooldown
4. Perfect parry window
5. Guard fatigue drain
6. NPC parry hold duration
7. NPC parry cooldown
8. Parry fatigue cost

And, indirectly, through #1 - lowers durability loss of weapon/shield/gauntlets that you've used to parry

Factors of block specifically in all of these are minor - imo, not enough to force you to take it as a class skill if you don't plan on using shields. But it helps. And for shields block is primary and secondary skill, so effect is much greater

And did some updates to the wiki with more general info

[copper raft]

Thats actually incredible, I cant wait to try this out now

[lime spire]

Getting mod errors when leaving cells, might be a conflict with pursuit idk I haven't had the time to test it.

All I know is that pursuit is not working now. THe error might be breaking it? idk?

[rustic latch]

Hmmm. That happens when you exit cell while in combat, right?

Should be relatively harmless - as that is happening on script detach, when re-entering the cell it should re-attach and start working

Don't know that it would break pursuit

I'll push a fix to prevent this, however

Actually I strongly suspectthat it shouldn't break pursuit

but I'll test

[rustic latch]

So two things here -

1. I've fixed that error on my end for a cleaner script detach.
2. I've installed pursuit and I can't get the enemy to follow me through the door 9 times out of 10 even with N'Garde completely disabled

So I don't think it was something I caused

Debug mode in pursuit settings also doesn't seem to produce any logs 🤷‍♂️

Meanwhile. I've also tested https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/57839 with N'Garde and it seems to work fine.

(if looks a touch silly)

[tough juniper]

🤔 could be worse tbf. Its on my todo to have a look at DW eventually, the anims could do with some juice

I haven't been able to get pursuit running in ages, I thought it was kinda dead

[rustic latch]

Yeah, it's a bit jarring with reanimation installed 🤣

[rustic latch]

Good to hear another confirmation. I did get the guard to follow me once, but that was it. Even with N'Garde uninstalled

[tough juniper]

Idk if it was .50 specifically but it was around then it stopped working for me

And some others said similar la r

[rustic latch]

Not even any errors in logs

weird af

[tough juniper]

Yeah

[rustic latch]

1.0.4 up on nexus

• Cleaner script detach from NPCs on cell change. No error message now (even if it was harmless)
• added an event on perfect parry for interop with Disarm Them All.
• Tested Dual Wielding, GRIP, confirmed no conflict with N'Garde
• Tested Pursuit - confirmed whatever breaks it is not N'Garde (NPCs rarely follow even with N'Garde fully disabled)

[inner hare]

I'm still wondering what mod in POTI conflicts with N'Wahrde and my bet is still on some totally random, unrelated mod with 0 gameplay impact

[rustic latch]

Well, It's weird. It works on test version of next POTI release, and e.g. some gameplay and animation mods are removed in that one. But the lsit of removed mods is also not small :D

[gentle shard]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how can I remap Morrowind menu from RMB?

[rustic latch]

Options->controls

FInd "Inventory" key

default is "mouse 3" which is RMB

[lime spire]

So an engine update broke the pursuit mod?

damn...

my bad.

[rustic latch]

Maybe, it seems that it still sometimes works, so it's probably fixable

[rustic latch]

MYSTERY FUCKING SOLVED

At least one of them

lmao. It was old version of skill evolution not working with the interop. So @here if N'Garde doesn't work for you on Path of the Incarnate, or generally - go update your Skill Evolution to the latest version

With that out of the way. I gotta say, release went smoother than I ever expected

[inner hare]

Good, chill experience so far with the mod on the main save. Turns out that parrying means jack shit when you shoot people in the back

[rustic latch]

lmao

But good to hear

[inner hare]

yeah, no bugs or anything

[rustic latch]

reports are positive and what issues did crop up have been minor

[inner hare]

mod seems to be popular. Seems that many people were waiting for sth like this.

[rustic latch]

I know I have been

[inner hare]

maybe mention in the compatibility section that the last version of the SE should be used, just in case somebody actually reads the readme

[rustic latch]

Did already

compat, readme, and sticky in the comments

[inner hare]

I also saw some updates made related to Foxunder's mods. Nice to have compatibility here.

[rustic latch]

Yeah, Foxunder got curious and suggested a couple fixes to make Gothic Style Knockout compatible.

And then we decided that on perfect parry disarm should not be possible, so added that too, but I don't know if Fox updated disarm them all yet

[inner hare]

he did

[rustic latch]

nice

[inner hare]

and it's a nice feature

[rustic latch]

yeah, fits together nicely

Hmmm . Nexus has added an ability load readme.md file into it, but I see nowhere It would show up, lmao

And another confirmation that update SE fixed it. Think we are in the clear

[tough juniper]

Optional hard mode: perfect parry ALWAYS disarms the user

[rustic latch]

the user????

lmao

[gentle shard]

A suggestion: parry with a torch (if equipped).

[rustic latch]

Ya'll just itching to send me back to blender aren't you

That's actually an interesting idea, however, it will need a new animation

I'll add it as a maybe for now - and mull it over - not sure how much sense it makes, torches in MW look flimsy

[gentle shard]

Wouldn't the torch (i.e. left hand) parry animation be symmetrical to the sword animation?

[rustic latch]

Sort of

If I exclude the opposite hand - and I can do that

but still needs a new animation file

can't mirror/flip it in code - need to do it in blender

and just pressing "mirror" in blender is likely to cause it to explore

[gentle shard]

Ah, OK. That was just a thought, since I remember parrying with a torch in Skyrem. Don't sweat about it.

[rustic latch]

Nah, it went on a todo

I'm open to suggestions

doesn't mean I'll implement all of them though

[tough juniper]

what do you need from an anim in regards to timing/ kf etc?

[rustic latch]

I'm running on way too little sleep right now.

But, id need just stop and start keys and 15 frames at 30 blender fps. And a name like "TorchGuard"

Just the kf file too, don't need the nifs

But before you commit to that

I need to check if I can easily tell a torch apart from a lantern

And that is probably tomorrow

[tough juniper]

No worries 👍

Good to know anyway

[jagged hamlet]

Does parrying damage the weapon/shield?
The material could define the lost condition, e.g. metal vs wood would damage more the wood item used to parry. Sharp vs round weapons too.

[inner hare]

Parrying damages the weapon. No material effects.

[jagged hamlet]

The shield too?

[inner hare]

Yes.

If perks are ever added, I always imagined shieldbreaker type stuff for heavy blunt weapons. Stagger the opponent on heavy hit even when blocked. Ignore parries under 50% timing completely. Stuff like that.

Shield bash, disarming (even via special interop), counter strikes and other kind of active abilities could also become perks at some point. Stuff you cannot get immediately. Obv it all only makes sense if there are enough perks to learn in the first place (so choices have to be made) or if methods of learning them are gatekeeped in some way (high lvl trainers only at a certain skill level?).

I guess that Iron Palm could also be a perk.

Non-player actors would get perks only if they meet certain conditions. Automatic for them, but wouldn't be sth that everyone can do.

[tough juniper]

I've always been a sucker for learning combat techniques in game, seek out a master or defeat a tough foe(or both at once) or performing some feat to unlock it. Hollow Knight sword masters or New Vegas had secret H2H techniques like throwing sand you could learn as feats from quests or events. It could be an epic quest mod

[inner hare]

"Admirers of the unarmed, unarmored martial arts traditions of the Marshmerrow, Salt Rice, and Golden Reed societies have adapted them for use in the Mages Guild, in the criminal subcultures, and among opponents of Imperial occupation of Morrowind." - in-game dialogue

We even have names for HTH techniques already and can make them whatever fits gameplay the best .

Oh gosh, the insane feature creep. Good that N'Garde is working already. There are many options for potential future expansion options/submods, but none of them are essential. Just cool stuff that could be added.

[tough juniper]

Cool, where is this from?

[inner hare]

it's what some NPCs say in-game on "unarmored" topic

[tough juniper]

Nice

Joinable Salt Rice Society when?

Finally show those Marshmerrow fools who has the superior technique!

[inner hare]

There is more info about various weapons and fighting styles in-game. Some random tidbits which you may or may not know:

• Highland Bretons were the first to use the very heavy two-handed sword called the claymore, but powerful Redguards were quick to adopt these massive shock weapons to their heroic melee styles. Not suitable for use by close order troops, the claymore is favored by the solitary hero-adventurer, particularly against great beasts and otherworldly creatures.
• "The unarmed, unarmored martial arts traditions of the Marshmerrow, Salt Rice, and Golden Reed societies of the Dissident Priest, patterned on the 'Rain-of-Sand' fighting styles of Elsweyr, are slow to be adopted in the Empire, associated as they are with the ascetic renunciation of worldly wealth and material goods, and the rigid disciplines and mystical philosophies so alien to the Imperial West."
• "The sabre is the weapon of Imperial light cavalry. Since horses cannot adapt to Vvardenfell's harsh climate, sabers are uncommon, except among Legion veterans."
• "The staff is the standard informal weapon of the traveler, doubling as walking stick and utility tools. Battlemages, spellsword, nightblades, and other magical support troops in the Legions also train with the staff, among other blunt weapons."
• "Small thrown weapons are a Khajiit specialty. Throwing knives are useful in cultures like the Khajiit whose warrior classes disdain heavy weapons and heavy armors, relying on stealth and maneuver for success in personal and clan combats. Throwing knives are also popular in criminal subcultures."
• "Heavy two-handed hammers were developed in the West to counter the defensive protection of the heavily armored Western knight. The iron warhammer has a single head with a balancing spike to penetrate plate armor. The steel warhammer, on the other hand, has two heavy heads, and is designed to batter or knock down an armored opponent."

[lime spire]

Instead of making stuff like perfect parry be unlocked after a specific weapon skill level along with a message maybe it would be better to make it a percent chance that reaches 100% at the skill level to better match how morrowind does things?

[inner hare]

It's not unlocked. Your parry window simply improves. You can even manage perfect parries at low skill if your timing is very good.

[strong lynx]

tbh one can argue that anlocking OR making it a breakpoint improvements with notifications is better for player experience

as gradual improvement is harder to notice (and therefore enjoy) than an obvious unlock

[inner hare]

Such a core feature shouldn't be hard locked by a threshold IMO. It's also very dynamic and changes with Fatigue.

[rustic latch]

I see ya'll. You may have gathered that I don't like sudden unlocks. Hence softer thresholds

But still thresholds

[inner hare]

BTW definitely noted shield impact as an archer during some fights. Nice to see shields not being useless vs ranged weapons.

[strong lynx]

nitpick, doesnt really matter, already pre cool - but shields certainly can use a more shiledy sound effect for blocking/parry

https://cdn.steamusercontent.com/ugc/14073415236720921289/57636658389FBE3CEDF92DA72A1E6684DD0C8E83/

Also picked a fight with few guards, albeit on an old version, quite happy that they dont spam parries and block on me, yes they block SOMETIME, but that doesnt instastagger me, its essentially feels similar to the frequency with which they-ll autoblock in vanilla

so great balance here honestly

[rustic latch]

Hmmmmm. I'll see what I can find. Currently they play same sounds sa vanilla does

[strong lynx]

in the video they certainly play something else... oh i gues thats a perfect parry then?

[rustic latch]

Good to hear. I think guard abuse was main testing method

[rustic latch]

That would be perfect parry. Vanilla sound overlayed with that ring

Hang on

[inner hare]

Skeletons for me.

[strong lynx]

yea, i guess then what i meant to say is that it be nice for shields to have their own perfect parry sound, since that one is too blade-y

[rustic latch]

https://gitlab.com/Arrean/openmwluaparry/-/wikis/Home/AudioVisual-Feedback

[rustic latch]

If I can come up with one - probably. But I like perfect parry sound being the same across the board

[inner hare]

It would be good to have special sound for HTH without gauntlets as well. More dodgy-kungfu-BS stuff.

[strong lynx]

from a shield i would rather expect a shield sound + lower deeper metallic ring

[strong lynx]

does make sense

[rustic latch]

I wonder if pitch correcting it will make it better

I'll play around later

[strong lynx]

although i think those "marker" sounds in those cases then usually made in a way that they dont really directly correspond to anything realistic

[rustic latch]

Yah

[strong lynx]

like you know crit in ds

or parry

is not really a weapon thin

[inner hare]

It has the gameplay advantage, but for HTH it's still off IMO.

[strong lynx]

its just some kind of arbitrary cinematic bass thing

not saying that you need to do that, just kinda thinking out loud

[rustic latch]

For sure. I'll need to review more kungfu bs sounds

[inner hare]

Absolutely. Khajiiti martial arts, here we go.

[strong lynx]

everybody was kung-fu fightiiiing

oh on perfect parry it should play the "tin-tilidin-tin-tin" from that song

bwhaha

[rustic latch]

Lmao

[inner hare]

Every time you perfect parry, you hear Fargoth

[strong lynx]

(in extasy)

[inner hare]

HTH perfect parries cause Curio comments

He gets excited

BTW I learned that shields don't block arrows in Vanilla only 2 years ago.

Truly a moment

[rustic latch]

Every time I replayed MW. I managed to forget that

It just makes sense that they would

[robust sundial]

After playing around with N'garde for the past few hours, I keep wanting a sprint function like in Skyrim. Morrowind combat is now super modernized with N'garde so it makes the lack of sprinting very apparent now. I wonder why it's never been made, it must be an engine limitation still?

[inner hare]

https://modding-openmw.gitlab.io/RUN/ it'a here if you want

[tough juniper]

theres a few

👆

[inner hare]

Def not sth I would use, but the option is there 🙂

[robust sundial]

Why not?

[tough juniper]

yeah, i don't think much of sprinting as a mechanic usually, unless the game is all about speed. it just encourages a certain kind of gameplay

[inner hare]

Player-only feature that makes the game easier and makes the world feel smaller. It's the opposite of what I want in-game. I enjoy MW pacing and variety of travel speeds and options.

[robust sundial]

Yeah I agree with that actually

[tough juniper]

they added it to oblivion and then every clip of that game seems to be the player naruto running everywhere

[inner hare]

Yeah, I don't like how sprinting influences gameplay in TES.

And there are many ways to increase movement speed in-game already.

[lime spire]

Oh nice. COuld you add an option to disable the popup though?

Just so it feels more vanilla esque.

[honest bluff]

it says i need ngc.omwaddon but idk where to get that

[lime spire]

This is only for the ncgdescription part which you dont need if you dont have ncg.

[tough juniper]

yeah you dont need that extra file unles your using this mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/57801

[copper raft]

I can confirm that N'Garde breaks a scripted fight sequence in Tribunal Main Quest Reforged (they should all be casting spells in the video but are standing still)
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/54743

[young aspen]

Finally played around with the mod a little after updating my install

feels great dude, congratulations

[lime spire]

Yeah I am impressed ^

It feels great to play.

And it works seamlessly.

[lime spire]

Yeah you might want to have another pass through goblins because some of them have sheilds and can use the block skill in vanilla.

If it's only sword blocking that is the problem maybe you could make it so they can only block if they have a sheild?

[uncut sun]

couldn't the regular blocking framework just apply to goblins?

[rustic latch]

Send me your log from that session please

[rustic latch]

Not easily. Since block gmsts are set to 0

[rustic latch]

Shield too. The animation of "raised" shield doesn't work on them. But I'll see what I can do.

[rustic latch]

You don't need the ngardencgdescription.omwaddon if you are not using NCG, as Half and dubious specified

[rustic latch]

Right, I see some of the errors in the logs in the video, and know how to address those, but I'm not 100% sure the rest of the fight breaks because of N'Garde. However, I'll post a version on nexus in a minute that should help, but I don't have that installed and don't know which part of the quest it happens in. So I'll need you to test

[copper raft]

I'm away from the computer for a bit, but later yeah I can absolutely test and send you the log. Luckily the rest of the fight is fairly normal so that video is the only time their AI broke

[rustic latch]

I've added a more general safeguard to not do anything if the enemy is not in weapon stance - or has not valid parry tool. It was handling more specific execution branches - now it will just exit the actor's onUpdate. Should improve compatibilty with scripted fights. Although, those that Iv'e tested in TR worked anyway

[honest bluff]

Alr good

[tough juniper]

Hmm gobbos... 🤔 That might require rawdogging the nif. Idk if you ever tried animating without a rig, it's ah.. not pretty. Doable but time consuming

[rustic latch]

** 1.0.6 **

up on nexus

• Some more safeguards against changing behaviour of NPCs that should not be affected (mages, archers etc). Should improve compatibility, especially with scripted fights like e.g. in Tribunal Main Quest Reforged mod.

[rustic latch]

That's yah. I've asked the elder council, but it may be bad.

[inner hare]

Rieklings also block in Vanilla, the snow gobbo mofos they are

[rustic latch]

I know

that's the two big ones, if I could somehow handle these even if I assume they are too dumb to use weapons to parry and only use shields - will shorten the blocklist by half

[copper raft]

Nice, and yeah I'm not sure what Reforged is doing different for it to have happened. I assume a mwscript in the mod is probably taking their weapons away to force them to use their magic. I'll check that out too

[rustic latch]

Let me know how it goes

[uncut sun]

set the gmst to as low as possible and fortify every goblin with 1 million block skill... i am a modder

[rustic latch]

Thoughts? Pitched it further down for heavy armor

[rustic latch]

That... May have worked. I fear I'll need to deal with gobbo and riekling animations after all

[rustic latch]

Ah, goddamit. The sound overlap for gauntlets/shields also wasn't working right.

Fixed shield sound feedback. This should be much better. Not critical, so will go up on nexus with other stuff later

[rustic latch]

And there it is

** 1.0.7**

• Better audio feedback for shields, gauntlets and "heavy" weapons used to parry/block.
• Another fix for "All Attacks Hit" mode - perfect parrying a fumbled attack no longer deals 1 point of damage

[uncut sun]

wait actually?

[rustic latch]

Possibly, but would cause a lot of weirdness down the line for other actors

So "technically" but not really workable, unfortunately

[uncut sun]

oh i thought you tried to implement it. it was a shitpost

[rustic latch]

I did check how it would behave

if it was that easy to fix goblins without breaking everyone else - I'd take it

[inner hare]

I guess that it is possible but with some jank which isn't worth it for some damn gobbos. New animations for the gobbokind is probably the high-effort way to go for in the future.

[rustic latch]

I don't even know where to start at the moment, with that

But I've at least figured out why and how goblins don't actually parry - it's cause since quick/hard mode was implemented I rely on animation keys to start the parry, and gobbos don't play the animation

[inner hare]

gobbos... da gits...

they don't parry out of mercy for the player considering how stupidly OP the devs made them in unmodded Tribunal

[rustic latch]

Was going to say

I don't mind actually nerfing rieklings and goblins

[inner hare]

and I won't even mention the snow gobbos

[rustic latch]

Yes, but how about 16 of them at the same time

as unmodded bloodmoon tends to go

[rustic latch]

Who is Teralitha, and why are they getting mentioned in N'Garde trailer comments? 🤔

[quasi niche]

some reddit mwse hardliner or smth i think

[rustic latch]

Ah, that comment makes sense then

alright

[somber quail]

Thanks for reaching out and suggesting this mod. It may never leave my load order.

That being said I do have an amusingly naive and hopefully not tooo annoying suggestions from a modding idiot that doesn't even know what's possible:

1)Brief hitstop effect with optional blur on blocking and being blocked.

2. Add slight compensatory stagger to blocker's animation on impact. Doesn't have to be huge, just a bit of added feedback.

3)Impact sound could use a skosh of added drama. The one you are using is really good, but needs a bit of edge.

Maybe something like this?
https://samplefocus.com/samples/sharp-metallic-fx

Anyway love this mod and hope my BS wasn't too annoying.

[rustic latch]

Hey there. So,

1. Not sure what you mean by hitstop, could you elaborate?

2. That's in the plans - I'll need to make animations though, and that may take a bit. Currently this exists for shields on non-perfect parry, eventually for all weapons too

3. I quite like what's there, but I'll check out what you've linked. Iv'e been thrawling royalty free sound repositories for a while now

[somber quail]

I'm here, just trying to find a good succint video to demonstrate hit stop. A brief verbal description would be a brief feedback pause the game takes to lend impact to collisions

Obviously this is a very polished engine and all, but vaguely this sort of thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZRNNJpWQns

[rustic latch]

I'm about to step away for a bit, but I'll check it out when I'm back

[somber quail]

As for the impact sound the example I gave was not from an exhaustive search, but the element I think is needed is a sharp, sudden ring of resonant metal impact. All sorts of examples of what I mean in Soul Calibur 2, for instance.

In any event thanks for tolerating my blather and thanks for the cool mod!

[pastel vine]

I apologize if this has been asked but are we able to block/parry arrows? I know CHIM managed to do it somehow. I'll have to grab a shield with n'garde and test

[rustic latch]

Only with shields

And enchanted arrows too

[rustic latch]

I... That's a good fit for fighting game, or maybe not even that but a beat em up, I'm not sure I'd want something like that in MW. However, there are camera mods that include all sorts of effects around hits and kills so maybe you can find something that suits your vision of this. That one I'm not likely to even attempt - just don't see it in morrowind or in my mod.

The other two however - the "parry hit" animation and more looking up sounds - that's on a todo

[pastel vine]

Awesome!!! Ty

Is there any niche things you need help testing? I'm going through all the settings

[rustic latch]

I mean, at this point - just play as you would and report any issues you find. If it feels too hard/too easy etc

I would like to think that we've fixed all major issues and the mod is pretty well tested, in no small part thanks to everyone @here

Knock on wood, considering the gameplay impact of it - there has been rather few post-release issues

[rustic latch]

Oh, and speaking of impact sounds - did you test with weapons or with shields? And you mean "normal" or "perfect" parry sounds?

[somber quail]

The 'thunk' of the weak parry is good, it has a good 'try again' kind of feedback. But the perfect parry sound sounds more like something metallic falling to the ground than two metallic objects impacting each other, both with force behind them.

As for the rest of the stuff, those were just ideas I had for whatever they are worth. Hopefully something I said was helpful in some way.

[rustic latch]

Hmmm. I don't know. Imo it fits perfectly for swords, and for other stuff - check this out:
#1482416741077356692 message

[waxen cliff]

.arrean

Fixed shield sound feedback. This should be much better. Not critical, so will go up on nexus with other stuff later

Attachment(s)

2026-04-21_11-38-14.mp4

Linked by @​.arrean from #N'Garde. Vanilla-Friendly Parry and Active Block. 1.0 · Apr 21, 2026, 10:39 AM

[somber quail]

All of my testing is with hand to hand, btw.

[rustic latch]

I've updated sound feedback a bit today

[rustic latch]

Yeah, that's where it sounds silliest :D

I'll see if I can find a good 80s kung-fu movie one to replace it for h2h

[somber quail]

I am not critiquing it from the HTH vantage, however. I am assuming there's a 'one size fits all' sound that has to suit for all.

[tough juniper]

thats really cool, i missed that you did that, nice detail

[rustic latch]

That's more or less what currently plays on normal h2h parry

[tough juniper]

would be funny 😂
id much prefer a bruce lee wood block though

oh word

[somber quail]

The change in resonance adds a lot of immersion.

[rustic latch]

That's the idea. It's pitched down for all three but goes from highest to lowest light->medium->heavy,

[rustic latch]

For Bruce Lee sound specifically - I'm yet to find a good free one

Oh, btw - those shield sounds - same would play when you block with h2h with gauntlets on

[somber quail]

I've you're leaning into the cheese, there's a load of good old fashioned kung fu impact noises here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLuAMD_hDI&t=21s

[maiden tangle]

Might be a good inspiration too

https://youtu.be/JTRi-a3Tn7Q?si=P2TOOFAefVD-Bu4h

[rustic latch]

I mean, I kind of do for the h2h. Realistic sounds just won't work, and we are allowing an empty hand blocking of weapons - so cheese it is

Also - a lot of people are more used to movie SFX than to real impact sounds

So while bogus - it will sound natural

[somber quail]

Definitely

I might have to fiddle around with that 'Player combat cry' mod I have installed to incorporate more classic kung fu movie sounds into the mix. That might be really fun.

[rustic latch]

lmao, a decent idea

[somber quail]

I fully welcome you to go down the youtube 'kung fu sound effects' rabbit hole. Amzing, weird stuff in there.

[tough juniper]

something like these? 🤔

[rustic latch]

Yo, that first one is actually great

[rustic latch]

Now to convert it into nexus downloads

[robust sundial]

When POTI 2.2 drops it should have a big increase in downloads

[rustic latch]

I've added disclaimers about updating SE everywhere

or do you mean N'Garde makes it into 2.2?

[cinder gulch]

Probably

[rustic latch]

kajklgljakghslkdghldskjf

I mean, that would be cool

[robust sundial]

It would be cool if different races had different punch sound effects lol. Like a Malahk orc sounding like a donkey Kong punch, and a bosmer sounding like a little kid punching

[inner hare]

Will it become N'Wahrde by that point?

[cinder gulch]

Any cool mod that doesn’t attach scripts to every actor in the game tends to draw Clayby’s attention

[rustic latch]

No :P

[robust sundial]

Idk of clayby has commented on it being in POTI 2.2 or not, if he says no we will simply bully him into adding it

[rustic latch]

Good thing I've designed it with attach/detach in mind from ground up

[cinder gulch]

Although maybe he needs a default keybind to be really decisive

[rustic latch]

Ya'll don't even check if your "default" is already assigned elsewhere ;P

Well, maybe by now you do, but you didn't when I spoke to Ownlyme a couple days ago

[cinder gulch]

If default keybinds are implemented correctly, it doesn’t matter if they’re already assigned elsewhere since you can change them easily hassle free 🧐

They only get quantum entangled if they’re not implemented correctly

[rustic latch]

My argument being - that for most players - they will be already

two good keybinds for parry is RMB and Q, both are system assigned by default

[cinder gulch]

That’s true I guess

If someone put a keybind on my q button (move left) I would riot

[inner hare]

I use Q ✌🏻

[rustic latch]

Yup. And it's "auto run" by default

I use Q as well - KCD muscle memory, and muscle memory of openin inventory with RMB

[robust sundial]

I use q for auto run, keeps it consistent with later TES games

[rustic latch]

So immediately - I'm left with no useable default :D

[cinder gulch]

Fair tbh haha

[rustic latch]

Meaning that on average it is likely cause more issues than it'll solve

What I can do - is check if RMB/Q already assigned and show a message. I guess

But if every mod does that - we'll have 50 messages on startup

[cinder gulch]

Put a message box in the tutorial

Was thinking about doing that for Sun’s dusk

[rustic latch]

I guess

[cinder gulch]

When they equip the dagger haha

[rustic latch]

But then it breaks with any alternate start mod

like H&B did for dubious

and that was a soft break

So yeah, I'd rather try and bully the devs into implementing actual default for "inputBinding"

[cinder gulch]

I don’t think so, I think the tutorial appears the first time you equip a weapon regardless of if you’re in the census and excise office no?

[cinder gulch]

Not before my permanent corpse

[rustic latch]

Not 100% sure

Never used alt start mods

[rustic latch]

first one to the mark

[cinder gulch]

Also I’m pretty sure the input binding is working as intended

[rustic latch]

yeah

[cinder gulch]

Just documentation isn’t good and it’s not straightforward

[rustic latch]

cause of different input schemes

just the docs are a bit ass

[cinder gulch]

At least there are docs

Some of the APIs are not as fortunate

[rustic latch]

Fair

Speaking of, Hyacinth, I've got a timer class in N'Garde that prevents the "script doesn't exist" spam on detach. Timers need to be updated onUpdate, but are light, so may be useful. I know Better Elemental Shields does a bit of that spam

[inner hare]

Half of my characters never take the dagger

[cinder gulch]

Yeah that mod is on the update list, not that anyone can read the debug log these days

[rustic latch]

Scary red spam anyway :P. I did "wait a sec before detaching" thing first, but it was unreliable

[tough juniper]

how do you add custom sounds?

[rustic latch]

Just have a folder somewhere in your mod and core.sound.playSoundFile3d when the conditions are met

I do that from global context, so I can play sound either at player's or attackers position

but check out the docs for that method

[tough juniper]

uh which docs exactly?
this? https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/modding/sound-effects.html

[rustic latch]

https://openmw.readthedocs.io/en/stable/reference/lua-scripting/openmw_core.html##(Sound)

[rustic latch]

So it begins:

[inner hare]

Gamepad support?

[rustic latch]

It works on gamepad

through no fault of mine though

I'm waiting for the "is it rebirth compatible" guy

[strong lynx]

not sure tbh, still sounds like a blade to me, I think shield fundamentally would sound different, probably not worth bothering with it

[strong lynx]

oh yea thats better for sure

[tough juniper]

Compatible with rebirth?

[rustic latch]

[strong lynx]

no easy way to do it

but maybe a cursed one

can send an event from onHit back to attacker and pause anim - but that be 1 frame too late and in swing anims where a swing is like 3-4 frames it might be too much

Then can instead of pausing actually rewind it to a proper frame - might or might not look cursed

Or, alternatively, always pause for a frame on any hit keyframe, so when actual hitstop arrives - it arrives at a correct anim frame and can pause further - might or might not feel cursed

feels very much unrelated to N'Garde though

[rustic latch]

I'd strongly prefer something like that to be a separate mod tbh. Someone that does like it can install it

I know I don't

maybe in your "Hit Reactions"?

[strong lynx]

i tried messing with hitstops before, i didnt try all aproaches i listed but i just also kind of figured that i dont really like hitstops

maybe on like super ultra powerfull megamoves (which are not yet in the game), but on regular attacks, kinda meh

[rustic latch]

To me it feels like it'll feel good in a fighter

or a beat-em-up

not really here

[strong lynx]

i think even figters leave those for only very impactful hits

[rustic latch]

yeah

[strong lynx]

i remember force unleased II (star wars slasher) did hitstops on each strike

and i remember googling it trying to understand why my game stutters every time i attack lmao

[rustic latch]

I meant more like MK or GGXX

more hitstops there

[strong lynx]

ye ye i get it, when i responded about fighters i also meant MK

force unleashed is an example from another genre

as if to say "not only fighters do that" or whatnot

[rustic latch]

nah, fair

[strong lynx]

i wonder if DMC does it

[rustic latch]

Although in action games like that one I don't know if I've seen it often

[strong lynx]

i think it doesnt

i think its smooth as butter

[rustic latch]

Haven't really played it much, but from what I remember - I think you are right

[somber quail]

Sure. Makes sense.

But in my defense what I was envisioning was like subframe fast feedback to sell the hits a bit, not necessarily a big showy effect.

[strong lynx]

yea, i get what you mean, it might feel good if its very subtle, but I wasnt super convinced after experimenting with it a bit

[copper raft]

Tested the update! It seems the sequences is somewhat fixed, but they stop casting after a few spells. This is the block from Tribunal Reforged's fight script that I could only guess is what your mod is conflicting with, but Im not really sure, or if it even says much if it is;

if ( sd_teamAttackGo )

if ( GetItemCount, "sd_almaHeavyBone" < 1 )
    AddItem, "sd_almaHeavyBone", 1
endif
if ( GetSpell, "sd_fly" )
else
    AddSpell, "sd_fly"
endif
set castTimer to ( castTimer + GetSecondsPassed )
if ( castTimer >= 3 )
    if ( castTimer < 4.5 )
        if ( GetSpell, "sd_handFireShield" ) ;;;vonos
            Cast, "sd_handFireSpell", player
        elseif ( GetSpell, "sd_handFrostShield" ) ;;;drals
            Cast, "sd_handFrostSpell", player
        elseif ( GetSpell, "sd_handLightningShield" ) ;;;arnas
            Cast, "sd_handLightningSpell", player
        elseif ( GetSpell, "sd_handShield" ) ;;;sadas
            Cast, "sd_handPoisonSpell", player
        elseif ( GetSpell, "sd_handShield2" ) ;;; savor
            Cast, "sd_handHarmSpell", player
        endif
        ;MessageBox, "CAST GO"
    else
        set castTimer to 0
    endif
    return
endif
return

else
if ( GetItemCount, "sd_almaHeavyBone" > 0 )
RemoveItem, "sd_almaHeavyBone", 1
endif
endif

The more notable issue happens afterwards when they teleport out of the air. They're suppose to chase you again but instead they get stuck. I have no clue what would be causing this, but disabling/re-enabling them got them to move again

[rustic latch]

you sure they didn't ran out of mana?

am being facetious

but

does this work with N'Garde disabled?

At the end - when the get down - all of them are in mage stance

I'm not touching them at that point

[copper raft]

Yeah, in the fight they cast on repeat until the sequences is over. And sorry, the log I sent didnt have the debug messages. One moment

[rustic latch]

it did

the N'Garde ones at least

[copper raft]

okay thats weird, discord just doesnt show the full list to me then

[rustic latch]

discord doesn't show the full file in the embed

over certain size

need to download it

anyway

I see that ParryController for each of these was created:
[15:16:15.642 I] L0x6000001[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[STATUS]:Enabling debug logs
[15:16:15.642 I] L0x6000001[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[DEBUG]:Created ParryController for: openmw.self[object0x6000001 (NPC, "sdtrib_savor hlan")]
[15:16:15.643 I] L0x6000002[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[STATUS]:Enabling debug logs
[15:16:15.643 I] L0x6000002[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[DEBUG]:Created ParryController for: openmw.self[object0x6000002 (NPC, "sdtrib_vonos veri")]
[15:16:15.644 I] L0x6000003[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[STATUS]:Enabling debug logs
[15:16:15.644 I] L0x6000003[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[DEBUG]:Created ParryController for: openmw.self[object0x6000003 (NPC, "sdtrib_arnas therethi")]
[15:16:15.644 I] L0x6000004[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[STATUS]:Enabling debug logs
[15:16:15.644 I] L0x6000004[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[DEBUG]:Created ParryController for: openmw.self[object0x6000004 (NPC, "sdtrib_sadas mavandes")]
[15:16:15.645 I] L0x6000005[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[STATUS]:Enabling debug logs
[15:16:15.645 I] L0x6000005[scripts/ngarde/fencer.lua]: [NGarde]:[DEBUG]:Created ParryController for: openmw.self[object0x6000005 (NPC, "sdtrib_drals indobar")]

but they don't really do anything else

no messages coming from fencer lua

meaning N'Garde is not doing anything much with them

In fact there are literally no messages from fencer.lua aside from those, although those come in several times in a row

not sure if you've switched cells, reloaded, or they exit/enter combat several times

no errors either

well, looking at logs closer, I think you did the reload a couple of times

but I'm perplexed

I don't touch casting logic

Oh fucking hell. I may know what is up

They can't move during that scene can they?

I mean, move on their own

Nothing else really that I can think about. I'll need to think on how to best handle that

If it's that

I am not at my pc. Will you be here in 30 ish minutes? I probably can give you a file to replace to test it

[copper raft]

So when I tested, I didnt change cells at all, I dont remember reloading though, thats weird. That video demonstration was them doing the sequence for the first time, so its not that they ran out of mana. This is how its meant to look (no ngarde)

[copper raft]

Oh and no, I think the mod does some weird trick with giving them a heavy object to prevent it. But thats suppose to going away Im sure

[rustic latch]

Mwscript fuckery

Ok. Give me 30 to get back to my pc. And I'll see if we can test something

[copper raft]

Yeah yeah for sure

[rustic latch]

Ok. In your ngarde install - find a fencer.lua file and replace it with this one. No need to restart the game, just do reloadlua in console

@copper raft

[copper raft]

That fixed both problems! Almost... I think because that fight cycles between those two phases more than once, the fixes dont re-apply the next time

[rustic latch]

Hmmm

They should

unless they get switched out of weapon stance forcefully, but get the "can't move" flag before that

so what I think happens

[copper raft]

Probably more of the mwscript's fuckery. I know it modifies their skill values on the fly as well to force them into using other weapons

[rustic latch]

that... jfc

ok

so, that specifically, while fuckery - should not be causing problems

what does, I think, is that they somehow get marked as staggered

by N'Garde

the "staggered" state, prevents both attacks and parries

but it prevents attacks by forcing them to "no attack" state each frame

I'm fighting the engine a bit for that one

so if they become "can't move"

they become "staggered" from N'Garde's perspective

and it doesn't let them do anything

I think I know what I can do