I realise backstab was nerfed into the ground (I’m going to post a feedback thread about that too because it’s absurdly bad now.)
But half the time even when I do manage to get a skull icon and attack, it just does not trigger the backstab at all, thus locking me into a normal attack animation during which they just turn around and smack me. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially after how difficult it is to even get into position now.
i’m not talking about how the window of backstabbing got nerfed by enemies having almost infinite stamina,others did
the big problem is the angle of backstabbing,it became extremely specific that it doesn’t make sense,most of the time when i manage to get behind the enemy the skull doesn’t appear,and when it does if you get too close or a step behind it disapperas
I think i will move this over to this bug report here: Backstab not triggering (even with skull)
as it sounds like that this might not be intentional.
I never played much backstabbing last patch, so I can’t speak to how strong it was before, or if it did require some nerf, but after attempting a parry+backstab build upon the new patch and feeling like I was going mad with how horribly bad and buggy it felt I went onto the discord and found out that it had been massively nerfed.
Currently it feels abysmally bad and frustrating to use, not only does it feel unfairly small (why can’t my character stab someone in the back unless they’re directly pixel perfect aligned to some arbitrary point?) but half the time even when I do see the skull icon it just doesn’t trigger the backstab, thus locking me into a long normal attack animation where they just turn around and smack me.
If the backstab was overtuned before I’m fine with it being harder, but the current implementation is horrible. Make it harder to get behind enemies.. Or make it deal less damage or something along those lines, don’t make it illogically hard to land when you’re already behind them. Every time I see a skull icon and it still doesn’t work it actually makes me want to stop playing. I’m going to have to stop trying entirely so I can enjoy the game.
Hopefully this is addressed, cheers for your work.
I will move this over to this bug report: Backstab not triggering (even with skull)
as it does not sound intended to me.
when it doesn’t trigger with a skull icon it definitely feels unintended, yeah, that’s why I put that one as a bug report. The rest of the feedback post was about how it feels arbitrarily difficult to get the icon to even appear, too, though.
Even if it triggered consistently I do not think it should be that pixel perfect/difficult. I understand it should be balanced but as I said that should be done through making it more difficult to get behind enemies or making it deal less damage, it makes no sense that when I am behind an enemy I cannot stab them in the back unless I perfectly hug them aligned with their spine or whatever arbitrary point.
Currently it just feels horribly unrewarding to land a parry, run around behind the enemy and my character seemingly doesn’t understand how to stab them even when they’re staggered.
i haven’t had a chance to try it myself, but i wanted to keep these posts together at one place, so the team can investigate the issue more efficiently 
While playing the Breach update, I noticed it was harder to backstab foes. At present, I find that the area of space you need to be in to perform a backstab on a foe in active combat is the size of a pinhead. I have little time to find the right area whenever I try to get behind the foe. When I do, it’s always too late since the enemy will face me again.
I would advise increasing the area slightly so it gives us a wide enough window to perform a backstab.
and parry windowwwwwww
i will move this over to this bug report: Backstab not triggering (even with skull)
Thank you! Much appreciated.
Yeah, I’m struggling to get any backstabs at all. Even when I’m sneaking up behind enemies, they seem to always turn before I can get the skull to appear.
I think the only backstab I’ve gotten so far in the breach update was when I was trying to do a sprint attack but hit the button too close to the enemy, lol.
I want the developers to see the discontent! It really got worse!
I had played the entire game before and now again with The Breach, and I had always had the feeling that backstab didn’t always work with enemies, but I wasn’t sure maybe I wasn’t coming towards them in the right angle. Until I found an enemy that was completely static and I could walk behind it and move without aggroing it, then I realised there was no way of backstabbing him. I have ten screenshots of my character smelling the enemy’s rear, changing angles etc, and the red skull never appears:
Maybe you could widen the angle of backstabbing a bit?
I think I’ve gotten like maybe 5 backstabs total through my first playthrough of 40ish some-odd hours. I think most of them were by accident too. I don’t think the icon shows mid-combat at all.
moved your report here. makes it easier to count reports, and keep everything in one place
I could never pull a backstab mid combat, only before a fight, and most of the time I can’t even get that close even when sneaking. The character is so slow when sneaking that the enemies turn around before that. It would be nice if they added a hiding mechanic, like when you are crouching in grass or in the dark maybe enemies won’t see you when they turn around
i actually use to get backstabs in the middle of combat way more than before it started. a big part of that was sneaking up to them just took to long lol. but if my weight was fast i was able to zip around and hit backstabs without really trying to but since the update ive only gotten a handfull of them
have you guys tried it again after the latest hotfix? i finally got enough time to test some stuff myself, and backstabbing seems easier than ever before. even mid combat while everything is moving dynamically.
I’ve played yesterday and couldn’t catch a skull while sneaking behind the mob. It just doesn’t there, tried different angles, not works for me
