This mod is intended for Sekiro v1.04 (before October 2020). It may be incompatible with newer content.

This challenge mod tries to answer the question "what if Sekiro enemies were copy-pasted into Bloodborne?" from inside of Sekiro. While the combat is simplified, it is also different in some interesting ways - and with different tools at your disposal, you can learn new muscle memory and form new strategies. Your combat capabilities have changed to be more like Bloodborne as follows:

- Use dash to prevent damage - block/deflect does not prevent damage. (This is the point of the mod - it makes some bosses easier and others harder. You really do need to approach it like Bloodborne.)
- Use dash instead of jump to dodge sweep attacks
- Use dash instead of Mikiri counter to avoid thrust attacks
- Remove perilous attack alerts
- Rally back your health after taking damage by dealing vitality damage to an enemy
- [New in v0.2] Dashing and attacking hurt your posture

The more lenient dash invulnerability window is 16 frames (0.53 seconds), which allows you to dash close to the start of an enemy attack swing and avoid damage, as you'd expect from a dodge roll. This window is larger than most Soulsborne games because Sekiro enemy attacks have better tracking and longer hit frames. If you find this too easy, you can try Beast Mode, an alternate version of the player animation data which changes the window to 11 frames (0.37 seconds) - the same as Bloodborne - but you will need to dash precisely when an attack would hit you, and in some cases use very clever spacing. By contrast, in Sekiro base game, dashes have 6 iframes (0.2 seconds).

Rallying has been added to Sekiro through event scripting. Whenever you take damage, you gain a red aura for 5 seconds and can reheal when you land a hit on an enemy that damages them. It won't count if the enemy deflects the attack, but there are plenty of ways to get around this. The max HP you can get back is how much you had before first taking damage.

There is still vitality and posture, and you still have infinite stamina - but it is more difficult than it sounds. You can't dash continually, and you can't attack continually - you have to switch them up, which can be tricky with enemies having fast-moving attacks and many different possible combos. [New in v0.2] Dashing and attacking hurt your posture, so rallying back to full health and dodging full combos become even more important. While your posture can only be broken by an enemy attack, you can mitigate this risk by only dashing when necessary and staying at full health.

Misc notes
Enemies are given more posture, so that fights are not too short compared to the base game. In v0.1, this was done by granting the Bell Demon at the start of the game; in v0.2, this is done with a param edit, with further balancing to come. To advertise my other gameplay change mod, you can use Better Idols to reacquire the Bell Demon as well as Kuro's Charm at any time, plus small conveniences like Gourd Seed upgrades.

One minor bug, because the file format is not fully understood, is that some cosmetic sfx for the player character are missing, notably the blue aura when using Homeward Idol and some combat art sfx. As far as I know this should not change gameplay, just the animation appearance.

Finally finally - by popular demand, I've made an Easier I-frames mod, in case you don't want a challenge run and just want to dash around. You can check either out depending on what you prefer.

Installation
This is a standard mod using Sekiro Mod Engine. Full installation instructions are as follows:

1. Download and unzip BloodborneCombat.zip in your Sekiro game directory - "C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\Sekiro" by default. The zip archive contains only a folder called "bloodbornecombat", which contains the mod files.
2. To use the mod by itself, edit modengine.ini to change modOverrideDirectory="\bloodbornecombat" and useModOverrideDirectory=1. Otherwise, copy the subdirectories (chr, event, and param) into your existing mod folder. See below for notes on merging.
3. I would recommend Beast Mode (fewer iframes) as slightly better balanced, which you can get by overwriting c0000.anibnd.dcx with the version from chr\BeastMode. To go back to more iframes, copy from chr\NormalMode.
4. Once installed, start up the game, and it should take effect on both existing save files and new ones.

Compatibility
Notes on files used by this mod:
- chr\cXXXX.anibnd.dcx - Animation data for player and enemies. All of these are required for the mod to function.
- event\common_func.emevd.dcx - Nerfs a well-beloved miniboss
- event\common.emevd.dcx - Adds rallying
- param\gameparam\gameparam.parambnd.dcx - A few different params are edited. You can use something like Param Assembler to merge those params into an existing file.
  - SpEffectParam: Adds rallying
  - ClearCountCorrectParam: Balances posture
  - StaminaControlParam: Balances posture
  - BehaviorParam_PC: Adds posture cost. This is necessary for the mod to function.

The edited event files are compatible with both Better Idols and No Tutorials (but of course to get the full benefit of either, you must install them).

Acknowledgements
This mod would not be possible without MegaTAE and DarkScript by AinTunez (check out his mod QuickSouls, which is a similar idea in the opposite direction), SoulsFormats and Yapped by TKGP, and EventScriptTool by HotPocketRemix. Learn about these and more in the souls modding discord: https://discord.gg/mT2JJjx. Thanks also to Loki for convincing me to take the extra time to add rallying.