Archery Gameplay Overhaul
Adds many features and changes to bow gameplay. Includes new animations with nocked arrows, bleeding, persistent arrows, and arrow enchanting.
Animations
New animations for 1st and 3rd person with nocked arrows
Replaces walking, running, sprint, equip, unequip, firing, drawn movement
Removes the huge shake from arrows when your bow is drawn
Bow draw time cut in half (1.63s –> 0.83s)
Fixes the bow string bug with Quick Shot perk
Optional animations for Belt-Fastened Quivers
Arrow stab added to bash attack that lodges arrows into the target
The animations have been tweaking slightly since this video The leg twitch in this video has been fixed too
Enchanted Arrows Enable/Disable in the MCM
Enchant your arrows using spells or rare rings. Any arrows (including modded & DLC) can be enchanted in the 4 basic types: fire, ice (frost), magic, and shock. The damage you’ll do depends on your Enchanting skill, and can be set up in the MCM. The enchantment will display FX on your quiver when your bow is sheathed, and FX on the arrow when your bow is out. The ‘Enchant Arrow’ spell tomes can be found at any destruction spell vendor (E.g. Farengar @ Dragonsreach, Faralda @ The College of Winterhold, etc.). The tomes are distributed through a script to avoid mod conflicts and to remove them from the game, if you choose.
The 4 rings can be found on specific enemies: Dragon Priests (Ring of the Dragon – 100% Chance), Wispmothers (Ring of the Wispmother- 100% Chance), Mages (Ring of Aetherius – 10% Chance, Ring of the Wamasu – 10% Chance). The rings will automatically charge your arrows by depleting your magicka. If your magicka is too low, the arrow will not be charged; at least until you fire again or re-equip the ring.
Bleeding & Persistent Arrows Enable/Disable in the MCM
All arrows now inflict bleeding, a damage over time effect that lasts for 30 seconds. Bleeding doesn’t kill, it stops dealing damage when the target is at 10% health. Bleeding damage scales with the target’s level, so you’ll see a consistent damage as you progress in the game. Arrows (and projectile spells) will remain stuck into their target indefinitely, and can be removed from yourself and NPCs using a new ability called ‘Remove Projectiles’. With this ability, you can collect some of the arrows you’ve been shot with. If you like, you can set a hotkey in the MCM to quick-cast this abilty, removing the trouble of going through the menus.
Bow Camera & Crosshair Enable/Disable in the MCM
Typically, you’ll have two options for your 3rd person camera: idle, and combat. This mod introduces a third camera position that’s used only for bows. When you unsheathe and sheathe your bows, you’ll see the camera pan over to this third position (as seen in the belt-fastened quivers video). It’s not just the camera that changes position when using a bow, the 3rd person crosshair will also move into position. With this system, you can set the camera wherever you like and still have an accurate crosshair. Both the camera and the crosshair have specific settings for sneaking, non-sneaking, and transition speed in the MCM.
If you want to use these two features along with the following mods, please follow these instructions:
iHud – Disable ‘Force crosshair to hide’ in the MCM (doesn’t interfere with iHud hiding your crosshair, this setting just disables the crosshair reseting all the time)
Customizable Camera – Disable ‘Adaptive Sneaking’ in the MCM (this just makes toggling sneak look much smoother, can leave it on if you want)
Arm Fatigue Enable/Disable in the MCM
Holding your bow drawn really takes its toll. This mod adds a small shake to the camera and controller when your bow is drawn. After a while, your arms will start to shake more rapidly. Eventually, the shake will become very strong and your stamina will start to run out. The total drawn time scales with your Archery skill; you can see it in the MCM in the ‘Statistics’ tab.
Miscellaneous Improvements
There are also many small changes which improve gameplay as an archer and against other archers:
Disabled auto-aim
Fixed female bow scale bug for Player and NPCs — sheathed and unsheathed were different sizes
Poison doses on arrows scale with Archery skill level — 2 at LVL25, 3 at LVL50, 4 at LVL75, 5 at LVL100+
Zooming in with bow adds effects to the screen
Set “f1PArrowTiltUpAngle” to 0.2 and “f3PArrowTiltUpAngle” to 0.8 — scripted, no ini file edits needed
Increased max. number of impaled arrows from 3 to 999
Increased NPC arrow spread from 4 to 5 — this lowers enemy accuracy to a normal level
Lowered NPC arrow arc from 30 to 10 — NPCs now aim for center of mass with faster arrow mods (ABT)
Increased ranged NPCs optimal attack distance from 1024 (14.6 meters) to 1400 (20 meters)
Increased ranged NPCs max. engage distance from 4096 (58.5 meters) to 5252 (75 meters)
Increased minimum arrow power and speed to 80% — arrows fly faster when you release the bow too soon
Recommended Mods
ABT – Arrows and Bolts Tweaks +50% Faster arrows is what I use.
Belt-Fastened Quivers (install “AGO – Belt-Fastened Quivers Support” last and overwrite any conflicts)
For female characters — Proper Length Arrows OR Closer Quivers and Longer Arrows
Compatibility
The following mods are all compatible:
Real Bows
XP32 Maximum Skeleton
Auto Unequip Arrows
Archery – Spinning Arrows
Ultimate Spinning Arrows
Requiem
PerMa
SkyRe
FNIS — For mods with FNIS patches (e.g. TK Dodge), install order doesn’t matter for third person behaviors, FNIS will merge them together. Install order does matter for first person behaviors, because FNIS doesn’t merge those files. You should install AGO last to make sure the 1st person behaviors overwrite other mods.
PCEA2 — install AGOs animation folders into a PCEA2 subfolder
The following mods are compatible when you install AGO last:
Skyrim Realistic Archery Bows and Arrows — Game settings are overwritten, put AGO later in your load order.
AutoAim — Load order doesn’t matter if you’re using ‘NoAutoAim.esp’, both mods disable auto aim. If you’re using ‘AutoAim.esp’ put AGO before.
Nock to Tip — AGO overwrites bash animation. No other issues.
The following mods are not compatible:
Scoped Bows — these were made to work with the vanilla first person animations so they don’t match up correctly
Any mods (which don’t have an FNIS patch) that edit the following third person behavior files: 1hm_behavior, 1hm_locomotion, bow_direction_behavior, weapequip
Installation
You should install any other behavior mods that have FNIS patches (e.g. TK Dodge, Blocking Combat Behavior Improved, PCEA2) before installing AGO. Behavior mods without FNIS patches (e.g. Combat Behaviors Enhanced) are not compatible with this mod.
1. Download the Main File and Belt-Fastened Quivers Support, if you need it.
2. Install the Main File, and overwrite any conflicts (use a mod manager OR extract the files into your Data folder and activate the esp).
3. Install Belt-Fastened Quivers Support and overwrite any conflicts (including the main file).
4. FNIS Users:
Generate FNIS for Users.
5. PCEA2 Users:
Install all of AGOs animation folders into a PCEA2 subfolder.
The mod starts automatically when you run the game. You’ll see a notification telling you to re-equip your bow and arrows. If the MCM doesn’t show up immediately, open and close the start menu a couple times and it will show up.
