First let me start by saying congratulations on going independent! now back to the topic, I’ve been thinking a bit about the parry mechanic in this game. The reward for a well-timed parry feels great, with satisfying impact and the ability to instantly stagger the enemy, but downside is the timing is extremely tight and almost impossible to do consistently, so most of the time you avoid using the mechanic entirely against the more dangerous enemies that can one shot you, which I find discouraging.
Now there is this game called Thymesia that had a very similar mechanic, both in timing and reward, except one of the upgrade trees allowed you to increase the time window of your parry. This way it was easier to pull off, but at the cost of making your parries less powerful, essentially doing less posture damage. I always loved how they gave players both options, as some will prefer an all or nothing skill-based approach, while others will prefer a defensive mechanic that can be used reliably on any situation.
In No Rest for the Wicked this could be implemented through the use of an enchantment, as it fits in with the idea of cursed items that have both benefits and drawbacks, as well the cost of sacrificing an enchanting slot for this specific stat.
If you guys think it’d still be too overpowered maybe consider removing the stagger potential completely in exchange for a larger parry window, and just making it a damage negation mechanic that acts as an in between blocking with a shield and vanilla parrying with a weapon? anyway, if you devs read this, thank you for your time, and I hope you will give the idea some thought. I really think you have something special with this game.