As the title says: I think the game has a big problem with its progression system, its loot and with how the improvement of the player’s stats and gear is paced.
An example:
As the patch dropped yesterday, I started a new playthrough. I have completed “Baptism of Fire” about half an hour ago. On my way to Sasau shortly thereafter, I came across two random encounters in short succession - both were skirmishes between guards and bandits. Helpful cleptomaniac that I am, I assisted the guards and looted the dead bandits. The problem is this: I’m only a few hours into my new game and I am wearing close to the best armour the game has to offer. There is literally no reason for me to ever spend money on armour again. Sure, there might be one or two pieces of armour in the game that give me 1-2 more protection or weigh less for the same protection, but marginal improvements like that are irrelevant with the combat being what it is.
Which brings me to the next point: the combat. As much as I enjoy watching my character engage in visceral hand-to-hand combat with the enemies, I can’t convince myself that the combat system in itself is very good, because it’s still overwhelmingly dependent on statistics. Until I reach about skill level 7-8 with any weapon, I find that it’s a lot more expedient (and on top of that: safer!) to shoot an arrow into people’s faces from 1 foot away rather than actually get my melee weapon out. Then, for a few skill levels, the melee combat is actually fun - and after that, around skill level 12, I am God of Death and it becomes completely trivial.
What bothers me most is that in the tutorial, Bernard makes a big thing out of holding your weapon in the right position to parry, which would call for much more player skill rather than player character skill - but in actual fights, this is completely useless. If your skill is high enough, it doesn’t matter one tiny little bit where you held your weapon when an enemy attacked, your arms and weapon will just teleport into the right position to block and counter, well done player. The same goes for your enemies when you’re still low level: they hold their sword above their head, you feign an attack from above, redirect to come from the side and you can watch them blink their arms into a parry position without any animation whatsoever. And as soon as you unlock the ripostes, the melee devolves into nothing but quick time events followed by hammering your left mouse button.
The tutorial seems to be written for a more skillful approach than what the game actually has, but apparently that got put on the back-burner when it became clear that time was running out.
It’s a shame because as I said, the combat looks quite authentic and visceral, the story and game world are nice and I haven’t played something so immersive in a while; but in my opinion, the combat system, the gear progression and the skill system destroy any sort of continuous challenge in terms of combat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over 100 hours in, I’ve already gotten my money’s worth and as soon as the majority of the remaining bugs are ironed out, I’d be quite happy to recommend the game; just something to be considered for future releases, I think.