I’m having trouble leveling up combat skills in this game because Bernard is too incompetent. Apparently Bernard will quit fighting and walk away after he receives a certain amount of damage. In most instances this is after 30 seconds to a minute (sometimes longer) of training with any weapon type. The enemies that attack me are not help with regards to training either. They are never competent enough to put up a lasting fight. They usually retreat or die after one or two blows.
Earlier in the game Bernard is able to block a lot of my shots (which still advances weapon level), and the training sessions are lasting a long as I have health, or until night falls. I’m only on the “Nest Of Vipers” quest, and only have my combat skills around level 10, and Bernard isn’t competent enough to train. He doesn’t block my shots anymore, so he’s taking damage , and quits the session.
I’m only at level 10 hand to hand combat, and he can’t even manage a couple minutes of training with fists before he suffers from too much damage and gives up. He doesn’t even inflict any damage to me in this time period. So imagine how fast he quits when I fight him with weapons. Many times he quits after only 25 to 30 seconds with real weapons , making it impossible to level up these weapons.
A lot of times the loading screen to exit the training session last longer than the training session itself. At this point it takes me several hours to level up a weapon or fists a single level because Bernard is taking too much damage too fast. I wish Bernard would start blocking some of my shots so I could still advance my levels without him quitting and walking away before he’s even inflicted damage to me.
Apparently I’m far too advanced for the fighting mechanics of this game. When Bernard blocks shots, you’re still able to level up the weapons, because your strikes still count. When you’re as good as I am at combat, Bernard isn’t able to block the shots, and he quits after 30 seconds of getting his ass whooped.
A lot of this frustration comes from the fact that during my first play-through attempt in this game, the enemies were either way too powerful and destroyed me, or they were way too easy and didn’t put up a fight. So to avoid getting beat up in the early game, I decided to train and become competent. The problem is, once you get to level 8 or 9, everything becomes way too easy. Which means I’ve pointed out a glaring flaw with this game. There seems to be a “competence sweet spot” where enemies will put up a fight, and the fighting mechanics are fun. If you are below that sweet spot, you get destroyed, if you’re even slightly above it, nobody puts up a fight. Because the user doesn’t know where this sweet spot is, he’s more than likely to be below or above it at all times. Which is rather annoying. You can’t predict what the game is going to throw at you moving forward, so you can only train and be prepared. Unfortunately once you reach about level 8, the game doesn’t have a challenge for you. Very frustrating.