Hexis (Beta)

“You are not a hero. You are a body occupying space. In this place, the world does not negotiate.” - Handbook, The Imposition of Will

 

Hexis is my solo project attempting to add a layered overhaul to Vintage Story’s combat. It tries to shift the emphasis away from simply clicking and backpedalling, towards a visceral, stance-based system that’s governed by your Focus. 

There are no free dodges. There are no endless bouts of combat. To survive, you must manage your presence, weight, and physical limitations. Every commitment carries consequence, and your Focus, the way you relate your internal world to the external, is the only thing that matters. 

Features at a Glance:

 

Dynamic stance system: three distinct physical states that dictate how you move, defend, and strike.

• The Hearth answers with resolution.
• The Chisel, with refuge.
• And lastly, in the height of The Hammer and The Anvil, when one's commitment forgoes the Hearth altogether, you will find there is no retreat.

 

The Martial Mandate: You cannot simply shift between states. You must centre yourself, through your baseline stance, to transition to the periphery. Ignore it, and instability will punish you. Tame it, and you may dance with fate.

Focus: The connecting mechanic of the mod. This is not at all like stamina. The stance you choose will determine where your focus veers, and thus, where you shall reap the rewards, or punishment.

Intentful UI: I’ve tried to make the system feel as though it’s a natural part of the game, rather than something that feels like an add on. Note, to switch between the two Stance HUD options, use command: .stancedisplay

Controls: Supports both direct keybinds and a Reset Stance + Scroll Wheel method. Type "Stance" into the controls search and all relevant bindings should appear.

In-Game Guide: The handbook contains an in-world intro into Hexis' combat philosophy, mechanical explanations, and the scraps of a wanderer long far gone.

Compatibility and Technical Notes: 

• This is a standalone mod with no other dependencies.
• Hit detection, damage, and stance state are all resolved by the server, with client-side prediction for responsiveness. I haven't had the numbers to stress-test this at scale yet, but it should hold up in multiplayer.
• Important values are configurable (via JSON) for testing and to cater them to your personal preferences.
  • All volume for audio is modifiable, to give flexibility.
  • Audio cues are heavily used to indicate Focus state and action use. Modify if too loud or quiet.
  • By default, switching stances and doing certain actions will provide chat notifications. This can be turned off.
• The mod functions natively with vanilla weapons, using general tags (like sword, spear, club, falx, etc).
• All animations are from Vintage Story itself, to save my sanity and time.
• The current stun mechanic works on entities in general, but I have not tested this on other players.
• As I have no one to play with, the numbers and systems themselves are my best guess at what works.

 

A Note on Pacing & Intent: This is not designed to throw you into the deep end. All mechanics are meant to be approachable and something you engage with from an active frame of mind. As much as my admittedly darksouls like prose paints a hardcore picture, my main concern is respecting the themes of Vintage Story whilst addressing the reason we play videogames in the first place, to have fun.

 

What I need help with:

• tuning default values to what is reasonable
• finding out how it FEELS from your perspective. 
• figuring out what does and does not work

 

What is yet to be done (that I can think of):

• particles that are viewable for other players (only relevant for multiplayer)
• More diegetic input for current stance to increase immersion

 

AI Declaration: AI was used as a coding assistant, proposing implementations, fixes, and improvements to existing code that I reviewed, tested in-game, modified where necessary, and chose whether to keep, plus a grammar/flow pass on this page's writing. All final code and decisions on what made it into the mod are mine.

• Ideas, Mechanics & Writing: All ideas, mechanics, and writing on this page and within the handbook are my own. See the note above about grammar/flow.
• Visual Assets: Images were created by me using Canva and Photopea, using resources available through either platform or from Vintage Story itself.
• Exceptions: The previous stance icons are an exception. They were not created by me and are no longer the default (can still be switched via the game command above). Since v0.1.1, I've made my own default stance HUD to replace them.