It was said multiple times, but it feels like it’s a requirement to repeat it over and over, because devs are working on KB&M but they are still set on keeping their existing scheme which is closely tied to controllers and is NOT usable by KB&M players.
On KB&M we do not have two sticks to separately control our character move and look directions. We have a keyboard to control move direction (usually WASD) and mouse to control look direction - in every top-down game except this one character is rotating towards the mouse cursor. Why is it so important? Because our character is attacking and blocking in the direction he faces: combined move and facing control is easy with two sticks, but impossible with WASD and NO way to rotate your character apart from making it move into a certain direction. It might be OKish for attacking, but it’s awful for defending when you need to go backwards but still face your enemy to be able to block its attacks.
Here are two solutions to this problem: 1 - make the character constantly rotate to face the cursor; 2 - if option 1 feels visually distracting, make the character perform attack and defence actions into the direction of the cursor and not into the direction character model is currently facing. Controller users naturally fall back with the left stick while maintaining their character look direction towards the enemy with the right stick. KB&M users do the same with WASD and pointing their mouse cursor at the enemy. Problem is - currently just pointing the cursor does nothing.
Another issue is dodging which is currently done towards the cursor if none of the direction keys (WASD) are pressed. It’s the opposite behavior from the expected: as described above, KB&M players track the danger (the enemy) with the cursor, but when dodging, we want to go AWAY from danger, not towards it! Dodging without directional keys is called stationary dodge and it’s usually performed backwards. So similar to the above: while attacks need to be directed towards the cursor, dodges need to be directed away from it when no explicit direction is set (with WASD).
Sprint, jump/vault, and dodge are three different actions in the minds of the KB&M players. We do have more than enough keys at our disposal and we are used to those patterns for decades with different games. So even if you don’t have enough controller buttons and have to deal with it by combining actions into one key, you should still allow us to assign those actions separately for KB&M, because it’s unnatural to have jump/vault being tied to sprint (nor to dodge for that matter).
All elements of the UI need to be clickable with the mouse. Right now a lot of them are just static hints - like V for “take all” action. V is not a super comfortable button to press and we can’t just click it with the mouse, because clicking currently does nothing. Please, go away from controller tied schemes in menus like separate buttons for everything - we don’t need that for KB&M, we have point& click and drag&drop actions which are much more comfortable to use.
You’ve added direct binding for utility runes, so we can have, say, 1-4 and 5-8 keys assigned and use all the runes directly. But at the same time you don’t display utility runes on the HUD, so we still need to hold the utility runes access key and use key combination or we need to memorize what is assigned to where. Apart from being uncomfortable, it’s also confusing, because all your tutorials only ever mention alternate key access and not direct access to utility runes. Plus, “1” (the number) with the font you’ve chosen for the UI, looks like “I” (the letter). But, in fact, we’ve got three ways to access those runes, because we also have a separate key to switch between rune sets: main/offhand/utility, which makes the whole system a mess. It’s an unnecessary complication, please, choose one good uniform way and stick to it. And yet again: you don’t need to replicate controller patterns for KB&M - you need to separate those two schemes completely if you want to achieve good results for both groups of players.
The shoulder bash key also creates confusion: the ability is only available when you’ve got a heavy equip load, but when you go to medium load the same key suddenly starts to behave like an offhand key duplicate. At the start of the game when players don’t know the mechanics yet this sudden change of behavior feels like a bug. If the ability is not available, the key should do nothing. Or better - the character should play a specific fail animation to make it clear.
All the above doesn’t mean KB&M controls are clunky by definition, but it does mean they are very poorly implemented right now. For almost every game designed for controllers there is a way to make it equally comfortable for KB&M (and often even more comfortable - but devs don’t want that, because clunky controls are considered to be a part of the “souls difficulty”).
And please, devs, don’t get it wrong: you’re the ones of the few who actually try to do something about KB&M controls - and we thank you for that. But it’s also because you’re working on those now, it will be easy for you to go just a bit deeper and make things just a bit more flexible.
Apart from KB&M problems the game is very good and unique - huge respect to artists and animators. The combat system is not bad either, just needs some tweaks still.
But I agree; runes is a bit messy right now.