Glory of Duel

Glory of Duel

Directional melee combat for Minecraft 1.21.1 (NeoForge). Every fight becomes a duel: you choose where to strike and where to guard, read your opponent, and manage your stamina.

⚠️ Early beta. The systems below work, but balance numbers are first guesses and multiplayer needs more testing. Feedback is very welcome.

How it plays

• Three directions. Move the mouse to aim your strike or your guard: left, right or top. Hold right click to guard. A block only works if your guard is on the side the attack comes from.
• Parry. Raise your guard at the right moment to parry. A successful parry opens a stronger riposte.
• Counterattack. Block a hit and strike right back, faster and stronger.
• Dodge with invulnerability frames (works against mobs and, by default, players).
• Feint. Cancel a strike during its windup to bait your opponent.
• Kick. Breaks the guard of anyone who only defends.
• Lock-on. Lock the camera on a target and switch targets with the mouse wheel.

Stamina and exhaustion

Strikes, dodges and kicks cost stamina. Run out and you become exhausted: your screen loses its colour, your strikes get very slow with no combos, you can't run, dodge or kick, and switching guard becomes heavy. You recover only when stamina refills.

Combos

Chain strikes that land to build combos. Switching sides makes the next strike faster. Certain sequences of directions (Crossing, Scissors, Hammer, Reaper) close with a bonus strike. Combos unlock with weapon mastery: the more you land with a weapon, the more you unlock. Press K to see them in-game.

Strong strikes and reading your opponent

• After sprinting for 4 seconds, your next strike is a heavy attack.
• The strike that closes a combo is also strong. Both show a golden star over the attacker so opponents can see it coming and dodge.
• Lock onto an enemy to see a compass on its chest: where it is aiming, where its guard is, and the strike it is preparing.

Posture

Every enemy strike you block or parry fills that enemy's posture bar. When it breaks, the enemy is stunned and exposed (takes extra damage). It works the other way too: if an enemy parries or blocks your strike, your posture rises.

Weapons and armour

• Works with vanilla swords, axes and the mace, not only the mod's own weapons. Other mods' weapons can be added through the duelcombat:combat_weapons item tag.
• Mod weapons: Dueling Sword, Axe, Spear and Mace. The axe breaks guards, the spear has more reach and drains the stamina of whoever blocks it, the mace crushes heavy armour.
• Armour classes and damage types. Slashing, piercing and blunt damage work differently against light, medium and heavy armour.
• You can block and parry arrows with the right timing.

Enemies (spawn eggs in the Combat creative tab)

• Dueling Skeleton: telegraphs its strikes and sometimes parries yours.
• Shield Skeleton: its shield stops every strike from the front, so get around it.
• Brute Duelist: slow, every strike breaks your guard. Dodge or parry.
• Master Duelist: a three-phase boss with feints and heavy strikes.
• Training Dummy for practice.

Feel and options

Camera shake, hit feedback, strike trails, a screen flash on parry, particle density and more, all adjustable. Press O in-game to open the configuration menu (or Mods > Duel Combat > Config). Every number can also be changed with a datapack (weapons and combos are JSON files).

Default controls

All keys can be rebound under Controls > Combat.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1.x, Java 21
• Install the same version on the server and on every player's client.
• Optional: Player Animation Library 1.1.6, only if you enable the mod's custom animations (off by default; strikes use the vanilla swing).

Known limitations

• No custom attack animations yet (vanilla swing is used).
• Sharpness, Fire Aspect and Knockback do not apply to strikes made through the combat system yet.
• Balance values are early guesses, so expect tuning.
• It may conflict with other mods that replace the attack or combat system.

Not affiliated with any other game. Inspired by directional duelling systems.