Modified Combat Overhaul - Directional Combat and smarter AI

Installation: Download Better Combat and Immersion Compilation Lite and swap the BetterCombatLite.pak file with this one.

Vanilla combat in Kingdom Come Deliverance only has the illusion of depth. In reality, what direction you aim for (or your enemy aims for) barely matters aside from combos, and the best strategy to win is to use clinches and master strikes. My goal was to put the truth to the lie of the game's original design, and I think I've hit on a way to do exactly that!

This mod starts with the excellent Better Combat and Immersion Compilation Lite as its base and uses the directional Perfect Block system found in Combat Overhaul as well as tweaking group enemy AI back to normal attack frequency and the master strike/perfect block windows back to their vanilla values. Read the descriptions of those two mods to understand what you're in for with this modified version. In essence, you won't be one-shotting enemies easily anymore (but still doing respectable damage, don't worry!), and you don't have to worry about combat just being a boring parry/riposte back-and-forth or just sitting around waiting for Master Strikes. You have to put some thought into what you're doing, but it's possible to win swordfights on skill alone, and very quickly (which also means you can take out groups much more easily now, especially without Perfect Blocks locking Henry in place all the time!)

What this accomplishes is that if you hit the Block button during an enemy attack, during the Master Strike window of opportunity, but you're not matching their attack side, Henry will fail to defend himself at all. Likewise if you attempt a Perfect Block but you aren't matching the foe's side. This makes breaking out of enemy chain attacks very difficult, and attacking into an enemy sector very dangerous (because they will quite often master strike/parry you, and ripostes are very hard to deal with since you have to quickly match their direction and parry them). You're going to have to watch where enemy attacks come from very carefully and learn to react incredibly fast to keep Henry alive.

The same goes for the enemies, though! Thanks to the AI adjustments of Better Combat, the AI is now very prone to feints and direction changes, making them dangerous to attack, and they dodge and parry whenever the opportunity presents itself. That means a single bad attack could result in your getting hit with a riposte and locked into a chain of devastating hits - you'll probably rely on the dodge more than ever with this mod setup, so the Light Armor perk actually has a reason to exist!

If you aim for your attacks for the enemy's uncovered sector, you can often score a hit (or at least a regular block) and either launch into a combo or simply batter the enemy down. It's not all roses and sunshine; very often the AI will suddenly change attack vectors and parry you if you try this, so be prepared to bail out if your offensive fails. Group combat is much more manageable now; if you're aggressive and careful about where you throw your attacks, you can dispatch enemies very quickly and even the odds. I suggest using a weapon without a shield if you want to be able to tell what stance an enemy is in if they're sprinting at you; by tapping Block, Henry will automatically mirror the foe's stance, even if that stance isn't visible during the sprint animation. Use that to plan your assault against aggressive groups!

Every combo now serves a different tactical purpose, since direction matters a lot. I'll iterate over how the different Longsword combos interact with this system here; I'm not as conversant with the other weapons' combos, but a lot of the same logic should apply.

The False Edge combo that Bernard teaches you is an incredible tool, because it's practically guaranteed to work (aside from enemies dodging out of it, which is a risk with all chain attacks) if the enemy is stanced down and to your left; they can't Perfect Block the vertical or top-right strikes from that stance, and the third strike automatically hits after that, which makes the combo very safe if they're in that stance. Note that despite what the game claims, the False Edge combo WORKS WITH SHORTSWORDS, AS LONG AS YOU DON'T HAVE A SHIELD EQUIPPED.

Thrusts can be dangerous in this system, which makes the Scarmaker more difficult to use, but remember that while they can be Perfect Blocked from any direction, the same doesn't go for Master Strikes; high stance can't Master Strike a medium thrust and a high thrust can only suffer a Master Strike from high stance. Use this to your advantage and alternate medium/high thrusts to make Scar