So I just had my first taste of the game, and while I found it both gorgeous and quite impressive, especially considering it was an Alpha build, there were a few things that really bothered me. First of all, was how sluggish the basic movement response was. In a world that is all about exploring, fighting and moving about, the less hassle I have in moving around the happier I will be.
There is an old rule to game design that focuses on how a set of rules should be easy to learn, and hard to master, and if you can manage to make the core activity innately fun and rewarding as well, then you have a classic, (a fellow indie game, Mount and Blade managed this pretty excellently) While the sword play here has indeed the chance of being very deep, it feels like it is going to be bound up in one school fairly specific mid-medieval swordsmanship, judging from what I saw, and what the trailers have shown so far. As you’d expect to fight a broad range of oponents in a game like this, from knights, to men-at-arms, to Cumans, and no doubt the odd roudy farmer, having them all strike a dueler’s pose and come at you in perfectly balanced gate just seems comical. Indeed I had the entire camp of soldiers lining up to get at me earlier, none of them sprinting at my flanks or trying to rush me, in spite of my lack of any actual weapons. The general input scheme might also be changed, as I found myself wanting to make sweeping gestures with my mouse to innitiate sword blows, and double clicks for stabbing, as well, as FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THE GODS MAKE RIGHT MOUSE CLICK BLOCK! (And again, a simplifying step here might be in order, when you have a general blocking scheme that does not take direction into account, it might be for the best to make the counter system based on a combination of timing of block and attack, rather then having us have to deal with direction as well there. On the defence you already have to deal with movement of yourself to make sure you are not forced into a corner. On top of this, and I cannot overstate this enough, as someone who likes to play these games for immersion and for the feel of adventure. Pleeeeease please please don’t lock us into animations, and if you have to, make them as short as possible, and make sure when can still do some amount of action while we are locked in. This goes to things like spurring the horse to move while we are mounting in a hurry, or allowing us to dismount while moving, this perhaps with a separate inanimation, letting us land into a run, and to being able to keep influencing my own movement when struck by a weapon or falling to the ground, as making me wait for all these things feels like a punishment and it pulls me straight out of the game. The only time being locked into an animation is OK is during a finishing move, when the sudden loss of interaction makes me pay all the more attention to the action on screen.
I would also love it if actually making impacts and successful hits on the enemies was a little more satisfying, with some meaty whacking sounds, and better overall reaction animations.
Another example is the clinching mechanic, which I dont mind so much, but make the ability to exploit the clinch intuitive, maybe by having us use the interaction, or attack button to push, kick, punch (stab with a dagger if we have one) or headbutt. Here is another excellent way for you to impliment secondary weapons, different weapons’ abilities in a clinch and the usefullness of a heavy helment, for that last bit of interaction mentioned above.
Making the core of combat simpler does not mean you cannot have the fancy stuff as well, but add it in later, and make it something based on a quest perhaps, where you can learn these very intricate systems from a master, and they could make you extremely powerful, perhaps as a duelist.
Having done a few years of medieval reenactment I know a little about this, even if I am not at all an expert. But remember to temper your historical correctness with fun, and keep polishing this gem:D
Cheers!
-Even