decided to visit this forum to share suggestions about combat and weapons, in particular the bow. im not really good with explaining concepts, but most of the stuff will referencing to the elden ring type of equipment system (in a way) and a little bit of monster hunter (also in a way).
i will start with the parry mechanics. to begin with, its a very games’ combat system flavouring feature, yet it feels like parry didnt receive any major changes from different games.
my complaint is that enemies in NRFTW getting poise-broken after one successful parry, no matter what weapon executed the parry. it might be a good adjustment to change poise damage on successful parry for different weapon types. for example: we have two different type of weapons, the first one is strength/heavy, and the second one is dexterity/light — while both of them have an option to parry, they still execute the same mechanic the same way, even when they are different gameplay-wise.
my suggestion will be that the heavy class of weapons would have parry with a fitting to the class properties: more stamina costs to do a parry animation, better poise damage on successful parry, but long recovery, therefore longer parry animation with two stages, first one is the actual parry with a wind up and relatively short parry windows, right after successful parry you could follow up with a basic, a charged attack, OR a shoulder barge that will either do a necessary poise damage to break enemy’s poise or extend the stun after broken poise (heavy load needed). if you decide to not do a follow-up attack or have failed the parry, then the second part of the parry comes — the recovery, it could be a guard stance that will cost stamina and poise for blocked attacks yet grunting some focus points (poise costs might be for both the attacker and the one who is guarding). this way we have an option for heavy weapons that can be used in a parry scenario, with different benefits and punishments; with different outcomes; with different purposes of use.
now regarding dexterity weapons it would be more fitting to make them less stronger with the poise damage on successful parry, the initial parry animation could have very low stamina costs and additional stamina costs for successful parry depending on the enemie’s move strength, more punishing for failing parry and getting hit (instant broken poise or something else). if you manage to do a successful parry you will have an opportunity do another parry in a quick sequence and deal more poise damage to enemy with every next successful parry (also gain focus for every individual parry), while having your stamina recovery boosted (stamina could start regenerating right after the first successful parry). from here you next option are: a riposte (unique animation or a very quick charged attack, could be a finisher of the basic combo for example) which will get stronger the more successful parries you did in a short time span and also could do a guaranteed critical damage once enemie’s poise is broken, and the last option will be about repositioning: after a successful parry you can quickly follow it up either with a dash or a roll, depending on the equipment load. this will make dexterity weapons benefit the player with faster focus gaining for successful parries and being a high-risk, high-reward option. last thing is that i totally forgot about shields yet they definitely deserve some readjustments to stand out from other parry options, and im looking forward to have a discussion about them. and then maybe not every weapon should be good at parry like shields, heavy and light weapons: weapons like staffs, wands and bows could have a weak parry that would be used only in a few cases with moderate costs, to make them more oriented to their type of gameplay
the bows. i’ve tried both off-hand and two-handing bow and im thinking that the both options can be valid with different purposes.
it could be done so some bows could have two ways to equip them: short type of bows can be use as off-hand or two-hand with different attribute requirements and therefore damage scales (the attribute requirements and scaling is definitely a topic for discussion). off-hand option could be divided between strength and dexterity attributes, and provide less precision/close range type of shots, but you can do a successive shots depending on your stamina. the point of this option is to keep some distance from melee enemy, just to have a somewhat distance advantage for specific enemy moves. rapid shot with less damage, less poise damage, but moderate stagger and status application. two-handing a bow will benefit high precision type of gameplay for the backline, which will require more dexterity or both strength and dexterity, better damage scalings for dexterity (also an object for discuss, but i have to explain this concept better). with a two-handed bow player can either do a combo shots, or a charged shot for different purposes. the combo shots could be a great option for cheap damage and better status application while having low stamina costs, but a charged shot could have better hp damage and poise damage for more stamina cost, providing high precision support from back lines while having more recovery animation from the shot. theres also weapon runes that could benefit different type of bows, for example: short bow can do a rain of arrows or a spread shot for multi-targeting, while long bows could do a piercing shot from crouching, or a focused weakening shot to the enemie’s limbs or vitals, which will provide different debuffs.
i guess thats would be it for now. because no matter how much one can picture the gameplay mechanic, it always should be further discussed with others in order to make a grounded concept, and only then it could be implemented to a game.