Auto sheathe

[RestinP]

I got my arse whipped or completely destroyed a couple of times because of the auto sheath and draw feature kicking in at most unfortunate times as well.
It only happens occasionally (for me anyway) but when it does you're wishing that there already was a switch similar to the alternative movement one, and you could flip it to non-automatic and never be bothered by this "helpful" feature ever again.

It would be fantastic if one of the next patches would include that switch.

 

[Dowlphin]

Well, I am playing Terraria until the game is in a proper state.
Terraria also does the screenshot thing better. It has one key for turning off all UI. High budget titles seem to have trouble with such advanced indie stuff.

 

[SHodges]

It certainly doesn't ruin the game for me, but I'd be happy to see auto-sheathe go away, or at least made optional. It really is such a cynical feature - you don't trust me to put my weapon away? I've always enjoyed CDPR games for straying from that kind of thinking.

 

[lightnb]

+1 for disabling auto draw and auto sheath. I also think tying combat/exploration key-bindings to the manual draw or sheath would be a huge improvement.

Very annoying, especially with spread out enemies like the drowners in the Ladies of the Wood swamp area. They hide under water, sword goes away, they pop up and hit you. Maybe this is a clever easter egg? An enemy exploiting your AI?

 

[AlexanderSamoshin]

It's far from game-breaking but is still annoying and the game would be deffinately better without it!

 

[MacKJames117]

They added that alternative movement option, why didn't they add the ability to remove Auto sheath? Can we stop this hand holding please?

 

[aFewScarsMore]

+1 lots of times when I sheathe the sword to fight and it was auto sheathe back and Geralt was fighting with monsters with fists. Let us decide when to sheathe sword and when not please.

 

[Dowlphin]

Achievement suggestion:
"Bringing Fists to a Sword Fight"
Die againat an armed opponent while swinging a punch.

Would be another of those not-really-achievements. ;-)
A milestone if you will.

 

[shnabeltasse]

The auto sheathe trigger is a bit wonky, I preferred to sheathe and unsheathe manually and on my own responsibility as well. I also hate that you practically have to wait several seconds before interacting with monster remains, chests and such till your attack animation is over.

Also, sheathing and unsheathing is impossible while in boxing stance. Why? This got me into trouble more than once (got me some hilarious fights and victories as well, but I don' see the point in boxing with an archwyvern). I simply don't get why I won't dare to draw my sword out of boxing cover.

 

[ZeroZero30]

I usually avoid quoting myself, but...

Seeing that this was not included with 1.07 1.08 can we get at least some feedback from the devs whether they are even aware of auto-drawing/-sheathing causing trouble for quite a lot of people and are at least considering putting an on/off option in the game at some point further down the road? Please?

Thanks.

 

[Bludded_Bod]

Any of you fine mod savvy people out there willing to look into whether an off option for auto draw and sheathe is doable with the just released modkit or not?
CD Projekt obviously doesn't want us to have full control despite the many people regularly running into problems because of this so called feature and its poor timing.

 

[Dowlphin]

Any of you fine mod savvy people out there willing to look into whether an off option for auto draw and sheathe is doable with the just released modkit or not?
CD Projekt obviously doesn't want us to have full control despite the many people regularly running into problems because of this so called feature and its poor timing.

No, don't make a mod for this. It would make the situation worse, long-term. It's the wrong signal.
What I mean?
...
Imagine Skyrim without mods. What kind of a game did Bethesda actually make?
(A game whose UI sent a clear message to PC users that they don't matter. ... And moddability send a related message of: If you want things your way, you have to do it yourself.)

 

[Q-Bort]

But what are the chances of an official solution to this?
As far as I know CDPR neither acknowledged that the automatic drawing and sheathing mechanic is broken (depending on the situation) nor confirmed that they're actively working on a way to optionally deactivate the mechanic.

So a mod is likely the only way we'll ever get that switch to turn auto-draw/-sheathe off. And for me (surely for others as well) this cannot be included soon enough. Just yesterday I AGAIN could not reliably deflect arrows because that stupid algorithm decided that it was time to sheathe the sword and call it a day, completely ignoring the bandit archer just that one inch (or whatever the threshold is) too far away.

And I lost count of how many times the auto-draw interfered with my manual draw, resulting in drawing, immediately sheathing the sword and having to fend off beasties with my bare fists while frantically pressing the draw key to bring up my sword again.
Good times. NOT.

 

[Dowlphin]

It saddened me that it took a mod to enable screenshots without UI, and I read up on it and decided it's too complicated and a potential source for more problems. It should be so damn simple to add the functionality into the game natively; a trainee could do it.

Currently I'm in a loop: After each patch I decide to wait before I continue to play until the game is in a state where nothing bothers me all the time. I usually approach something new with great positive spirit and then when I encounter too many bad things and they add up, I eventually lose motivation.

The auto-sheathing is a feature that likely involves some complex interactions in the game logic, so it could be that CDPR didn't talk about it yet because they aren't even sure how to do it and/or because they have their hands full sorting out other tricky stuff, maybe even gamebreaking.

 

[Q-Bort]

Hm, I don't know about the gamebreaking part.
I'm obviously no expert on the inner workings of the game either, but judging from what can be observed it's probably just an algorithm that continously scans for hostiles within a certain radius around Geralt and triggers auto-draw once:

# something hostile crosses the invisible border and is within range or
# something that's already within range suddenly turns hostile

or triggers auto-sheathe once:

# there isn't anything hostile within range anymore

Now simply surpress or completely deactivate this scanning algorithm (IF it is actually something like that) and bingo! No more interference with manual drawing or prematurely sheathing because there isn't anything hostile within that certain immediate range any longer.

 

[Q-Bort]

Well, that was fast:

nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/319/?

This is a very simple tweak that prevents Geralt from automatically sheathing his sword when combat ends or when you get out of the enemy aggro zone.

Optional file to disable auto unsheathing on combat start included as well.


INSTALLATION:

Simply unzip the mod files in your "Mods "folder found in your Witcher 3 main game directory or use the mod manager.


HOW IT WORKS?

This mod comments out the following lines in playerWitcher.ws in OnCombatFinished() function thus preventing the sheathing animation from playing:

/*
LogChannel( 'OnCombatFinished', "OnCombatFinished: DelayedSheathSword timer added" );
if ( ShouldAutoSheathSwordInstantly() )
AddTimer( 'DelayedSheathSword', 0.5f );
else
AddTimer( 'DelayedSheathSword', 2.f );
*/

Optional "No Auto Sword Unsheath" file modifies function GetMostConvenientMeleeWeapon() in playerWeaponHolster.ws:

if(targetToDrawAgainst.UsesVitality())
{
ret = PW_Fists;
}
else if(targetToDrawAgainst.UsesEssence())
{
ret = PW_Fists;
}

I cannot test the mod right now unfortunately, but if anyone out there could give it a shot and report back here? Would be great.

 

[Dowlphin]

Wow, that's damn trivial.
Then again, a similar case I recently witnessed in Terraria: The default cursor can easily become overlooked in intense action, no matter what color you set it. But there is a config file option that adds a thick border to it, making it wonderfully visible. But the devs didn't include this extremely useful setting into the options menu, but left it undocumented.

 

[Garrison72]

I quick tested the mod and it worked perfectly. Mind boggling CDPR never chose to implement this, but no matter, we have it now. Quick note: when Geralt gets close to enemies he'll enter boxing stance rather than pull his sword.

Here's a working link:

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/319/?

 

[Dowlphin]

Quick note: when Geralt gets close to enemies he'll enter boxing stance rather than pull his sword.

[/QUOTE]
And this is why I don't like mods. Also because when those files get updated, the mod needs to be updated, too, or there will be unforseeable results.

[Sard Edit: Annnnd then you posted about UI issues. Complete with a video, not auto sheathe related. ]

Edit: So afraid that one video embed could derail the thread topic?
I take that as a compliment. ^^

 

[Q-Bort]

Quick note: when Geralt gets close to enemies he'll enter boxing stance rather than pull his sword.

Here's a working link:

nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/319/?

If that's what it takes to completely prevent the automatic unsheathing from triggering I'll gladly take it.
I'm used to draw swords manually anytime anyway, so at least for me there would hardly ever be a bringing your fists to a sword fight-like situation any longer.

Thanks for testing and the feedback!


Can't wait to try out the mod myself when I'm back at my place in a couple of hours.

And who knows - considering how simple it seems to be to override the mechanic altogether via some injected scripting CDPR might reconsider and eventually come around implementing an on/off switch similar to the alternate movement one at a later point. Maybe an UI-less screenshot function as well.