Update: I have to be honest I’ve played more and gotten some move speed on pants and a lot of what I said kind of isn’t that relevant. I still feel like many enemies have a little too many lunging attacks but I am able to step them via walk more so than run which is feeling much better. Might have been a skill issue although I feel I might be over leveling the zone I’m in quite a bit too. I would still consider this too easy for “hard” personally.
I’m going to preface this by admitting I’ve played 8h, but I feel melee combat in this game needs a few small adjustments. Also this is related to the hardest difficulty.
Firstly, the combat feel is fantastic, I kind of wish it wasn’t described as “Souls like” because it sort of isn’t too me, but from a game feel perspective I like it. But I have some gripes with how I’m being forced to play my build (str focused 2hand) and I think changes would benefit combat holistically and make it easier to deign going forward.
My issues relate to 4 topics in no particular order
Parry: Parry is simply too overpowered and underpowered at the same time. It should be high risk, high reward. But currently it is low risk and low reward. The reasons for this is because the parry window is too lenient, and the stagger is too short. If I land a parry, I get essentially one free instant attack with my claymore, if I charge to get more damage, this is often enough time for my opponent to attack me in the recovery of my swing, which feels terrible. Parry needs to be harder to time and afford more time to attack after. Even something simple like follow up attacks to parried foes guarantee a flinch so enemies don’t just armor through the entire reason you parried.
Rolling: Rolling is way to easy to spam, has way too many invincibility frames. When overwhelmed, it’s extremely reliable to simply spam roll. Especially at lower weight which the mechanics for are cool, but aren’t hitting the mark.
Enemy Lunge Attacks: This is the only thing I think needs to be completely reevaluated, especially as a 2hand large weapon user, you cannot whiff punish enemies by baiting attacks reliably, at least it’s not worth doing when rolling into enemies is just easier, and lets you parry. Too many enemies in this game have basic attacks that close the distance almost full screen. This is on top of having full screen telegraphed jumping attacks, or shoulder charges. What this means is you essentially are forced to roll spam, parry or just stand really far away. There’s no guarantee you flinch an enemy combo, so baiting the first attack in a 3hit combo just gets you killed. But this is also because walk speed is too slow when enemies can just lunge at you.
Weight: The weight system has a cool baseline idea, you essentially get different move sets depending on your weight which is awesome. But the issues above make being heavy almost worthless. You have a better roll, seem to move faster, armor barely impacts the damage you take, and the shoulder bash is pretty meh in comparison.
Death: As an aside is death meaningful in anyway? I feel like if I can afford repair costs, death is meaningless. Sometimes I would rather die than go back into town to save time. Or not use food or potion buffs because if I die in their buff duration I’ll just lose it. I feel like maybe losing a random quick use item on death(maybe recoverable ala dark souls) could incentivize me to use my food to stay alive, rather than be like “oh I positioned myself poorly, if I eat and get the stam buff I might die and lose it. Maybe double down the bonus xp on hard mode, give players additional xp modifier as they kill enemies. So if I’ve killed 10 enemies without dying I get 10% xp and dying would reset it, making me want to stay alive instead of just killing myself to teleport.
I would like to see the changes to combat focus more on precise spacing, by eliminating invincible rolling, reduction in normal enemy attacks being lunges, and see the moves based on weight expanded. If spacing was more relevant, I’d love to see heavy weight get a fast but short range hop instead of the fat roll, that maybe produces a new attack if done before a swing, so you could just barely side step attacks but would need to more consistently space yourself as you are likely using a larger weapon. Then the poise heavy armor gives would allow you to tank being poorly spaced when attempting to push the limit of spacing.
I find the combat fun, but I’m playing the hardest difficulty, using nothing but pants with move speed so I keep my insane roll and speed, put all my points into str. I just stand far enough the lunge attacks don’t hit, but am forced to wait for really vulnerable moments to swing because being close just is unpredictable. Especially because it is the only moment that charging and successfully landing a charge attack won’t just get me killed (ON HIT BTW). If I do stand close, it’s boring as I can easily roll through everything, and if I get bored, I can land a parry, which often gets me a boring uncharged hit, often I just use that moment to heal lol
All in all I do love the feel of combat, but it’s too easy to abuse. I have more feedback but I’m on mobile so having to limit myself as typing is annoying. I didn’t even mention how unbelievably broken bows seem to be, as they allow you to play essentially free from danger. I don’t even have the stats to use it and doing 6 damage full screen is stupidly broken.