Footwork
Keep moving while you attack (one-handed weapons faster), and every melee hit of a combo goes exactly where the camera points. Client-only.Footwork
Tired of being rooted to the spot every time you swing, and of combo hits going everywhere but where you're looking?
In vanilla Valheim you creep at a fifth of your speed at the start of an attack and stop dead once it lands. Only the first hit of a combo turns you towards the camera, so the follow-ups go wherever your body happens to face. Footwork lets you keep moving through the whole attack and puts every melee hit exactly where the camera points. Footwork is client-only: it works on vanilla dedicated servers.
Features
- Move while you attack. Strafe around an enemy, back off mid-combo or close the gap as you swing, in whatever direction you press, for the whole attack.
- One-handed weapons are nimbler. Swords, one-handed axes, maces, knives and spears move at 1.5× crouch (sneak) speed. Two-handed weapons, bows, crossbows, staffs, torches and fists move at crouch speed.
- Never faster than you'd go anyway. If you're walking, you keep walk speed. Water, deep snow, armour and status-effect slowdowns still apply on top.
- Lunges still lunge. Steps built into an attack's animation still carry you whenever they're faster than your footwork.
- Melee hits go where the camera points. During melee swings and area attacks (sledge slams, atgeir spins) your character turns with the camera for the whole attack, every hit of the combo included. It's lined up again at the instant each hit lands. Up-and-down aim stays vanilla, within each weapon's limit. Bows, crossbows, thrown spears and staffs already fly where you aim.
- Each part is its own setting.
Settings (F1 → Footwork)
| Section | Setting | Default | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moving while attacking | Enabled | on | Off is vanilla movement. |
| Speed, one-handed (× crouch speed) | 1.5 | Your speed during an attack with a one-handed weapon. 0 stands still, 2 is double crouch speed. | |
| Speed, other attacks (× crouch speed) | 1 | The same for everything else. | |
| Melee aim | Aim at camera | on | Off is vanilla facing. |
| Debug | Debug log | off | Writes each attack's speeds and how far off the camera each melee hit was facing to BepInEx/LogOutput.log. For bug reports. |
Changes apply right away, whether you make them in F1 or in BepInEx/config/vh.footwork.cfg while the game runs.
Compatibility
- Client-only. Install it on your own game; the server stays vanilla. Your game moves and turns your own character and runs your own attacks, so the change stays on your side. Other players see you move and turn as usual, and your hits go out like any other. No new network messages, no world data.
- Your character plays the attack animation as usual while it moves, so it glides rather than steps. It also turns instantly with the mouse mid-swing.
- With the game's "attack towards player look direction" option on, melee attacks face the camera anyway while Aim at camera is on.
- Works with First Person POV: during melee attacks your body faces the camera exactly; the rest of the time First Person POV behaves as usual.
- Requires BepInExPack Valheim. Recommended: a Configuration Manager for the F1 settings. Without one, edit the .cfg file.
- Made for Valheim 1.0.21.
- Mods that also change attack movement or facing (by patching
Humanoid.GetAttackSpeedFactorMovement,Character.ApplyLiquidResistance,Character.UpdateRotationorAttack.OnAttackTrigger) may clash with it. - Servers that only allow whitelisted client mods may refuse it, like any other unlisted mod.