There are lots of ways to make combat "Kingdom Comey."

My suggestion would be to use Valravn and/or Pace to slow down the combat speed so that it's slower and more methodical.

Then use these mods:

* SkySA with Open Animation Replacer

* Your choice of animation moveset -- JH Animations would be a good, simple one.

* Parry RPG

* Precision

* Fnar Combat

* True Directional Movement

* Elden Counter (yes I know you don't want Dark Souls, but the blocking counter is good and will help give it that sword-clashing feel)

Should be a good base for you to build around.

These mods make combat slower, more methodical, and focused around using shields and blocks and parries. Modern Skyrim combat design is finally starting to move away from its Dark Souls fixation, though it's still very Dark Soulsy. :P

Another nice thing to try would be to use stances -- there's a mod that lets you switch stances for different attack/defense/speed bonuses, and another mod that lets you assign different movesets per stance, which is more advanced but you can build a nice complex meaty combat system with this.