Yep. Combat is very hard in the beginning for an inexperienced son of a blacksmith. Remember, it’s an RPG, and so you will have to role play as an inexperienced youth. So in the beginning you get thrashed unless you run away. You need to train a lot to get good. And not just combat skills but also strength and agility. I trained a lot on the cows in Skalitz before the Cumans come. And in the beginning a mace and bow are nice weapons. The mace works great if you are strong, bashes in skulls nicely. Bow has the advantage of having distance to the sword wielder. Combined with stealth tactics is great fun. I am now working my way up training with Captain Bernard, still need a lot of sessions…
Tip on the strength training: unarmed only, so the cows do not die. Also, avoid being seen to hit the cows. That will bring unwanted attention to you.
I would chose maces all the way. They absolutely own in this game.
This is not a hack and slash game. It is skill based and during multiple enemies do not charge in but walk backwards facing all your enemies. Parry and strike the nearest while turning from the others and striking fast. Quick stabs can cause bleeding with the right weapon. You can also cause instant death faster later in the game with quick stabs. The game is meant to be challenging in the early outset, and some fights will seem to be futile early on. Learn to run for your life and git gud and come back.
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Or just riposte and then stab while corridoring the hostiles inbetween some trees or a doorway
Agreed, the mace is awesome.
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TBH I find the axes lackluster. Sure, they deal both slashing and blunt damage at once, which is good, but they also have several drawbacks such as:
-low range
-low speed
-lowest durability of all weapons (which isn’t much of a deal, but it’s a fact)
-despite high nominal damage (45 slashing + 45 blunt + modifiers in case of the metal plated axe) they also suffer penalties to damage from enemy armor (because the damage is divided into two categories, and each has its own defensive value.
I play mostly with swords, but have also managed to get good results from maces (though they require an aggressive fighting style). Using axes usually leads to me getting killed by high level mobs, especially if they attack in groups.
Bottom line: if you want a fast weapon to whittle down a group of opponents, the sword is for you. If you want a strong weapon to defeat heavy plate in single combat, the mace/warhammer is for you. If you can’t make up your mind go for the axe, though beware a sore groin from sitting on the fence for too long.
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I dunno . . . “horrible” seems a bit inflammatory.
Having been playing games for . . . oh jeez 27 years for computer games and 40 years for strategy & tactics else RPGs . . . I was kinda pleasantly surprised that they have created a system here which makes NPCs at least a BIT of a challenge.
Admittedly, the system is strange, unfamiliar, seemingly awkward at first, difficult to master, and more-reliant on mouse-precision than I would prefer, but I’ll master it eventually I’m sure!
Even without very much weapons skill (like level 2), but LOTS of “training” from punching cows, murdering chickens, poaching bunnies, mugging passersby, picking flowers, bunny-hopping around the kingdom, raiding treasure caches, and many long hours sweating over the alchemy bench, etc., I’m able to take on entry-level bandits and cumans in the immediate vicinity of Rataje without much of a sweat . . .