Is it normal that in adventurer mode, attacks seem to be way slower than normal? Like a regular slash or stab with a longsword is "VVSlow".
Yes. That's a part of the weapon rebalance from my mod. Combat speed has been readjusted and generally made much slower. 'Stab', 'slash' and similar attacks have been made proportionally slower. As a counterbalance, most edged weapons have been given new 'jab' and 'cut' attacks which are a faster, yet weaker variations (will still cause bleeding in poorly armored targets). The reasoning and the goals for this are as follows:
- A walking step in DF is roughly 9 ticks. A sprinting human step is about 6-7 ticks. Realistically, landing a full swing would take about the same amount of time as a running step does, and recover would take about half a step. Thus, the average swing now has 7:4 for prepare:recover time.
- This makes movement speed more important in combat overall. As the combat is now slower-paced in general and wall-to-wall combat specifically is less deadly (easier blocking), active tactics and squad microing in Fort Mode become much more fun and fruitful than with vanilla attack speeds; in Adv Mode, combat is less random and fighting multiple opponents at once is notably harder. Over time effects, such as bleeding, will also be more important, and so will be any other background event that can happen during the longer attack delays.
- This system allows for much more diversified weapon speeds and, thus, better reach simulation. Pikes now have a very meaningful advantage over, say, an axe, even at higher skill levels.
- Skills now matter more too. I don't know how the exact speed bonus is calculated, but in vanilla there are basically only 3 levels of combat speed: "no skill" (3:3), "average skill" (2:2) and "as fast as mechanically possible" (1:1). The new system should give a much better feel of progression.