Changes I’d make to the combat system if I were a person who wrote mods:
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Higher skill should buy you more bullet time rather than just letting you power through everything. Some of us are older and don’t have super-quick reflexes.
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When wielding a bow at close range, enemy AI should just repeatedly stab at you like a human cuisinart, why are they waiting to strike, it’s not like they can parry a damn arrow? Right now high-skilled archery trivializes combat because you can reliably face-arrow as many enemies as you can carry arrows.
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Rebalance stats so they give diminishing returns in combat from 10-20 with new 20 being about equal performance-wise to current 15. Maybe keep the current strength carry weight, and Speech is probably fine, but in terms of damage/speed/etc the combat stats get kinda super-human and the game is more fun with a more grounded, realistic Henry.
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I need a way to macro combos, I have apparently never executed a single combo going by my game stats and that’s with 165 hours so far on Steam. (Alternativey, maybe put in some wooden training dummies so I can practice combos against enemies who won’t block them and who don’t die from the first hit before I can execute said combo). It seems like every enemy either dies in one hit, or blocks every blow, so combos become redundant.
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Given how powerful it is, poison should wash off your weapon in a matter of minutes not a matter of days. Make it a special use thing not a walking constant standard thing.
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Either add the bow reticle in or adjust henry’s arm position so that “natural” sighting is more possible, because it’s really awkward without console commanding in the reticle, but tune down bow damage a bit because, damn. Basically archery needs to be easier to use but less radically effective. The above-mentioned AI change – making enemies stab archers repeatedly rather than defensively stand back like if you’re wielding a melee weapon – might be enough, without a change to damage on successful shots.
- Renorm and rebalance some of the higher end gear – “better piercing” arrows, the Stinger shortsword, a few other pieces that are disproportionately more powerful than anything else.
Right now there’s virtually no problem in the game that can’t be solved by a high-stat henry with a good bow and poisoned “better piercing” arrows. I slaughtered the whole damn Nest of Vipers singlehanded by just standing at the top of a one-man-wide staircase and feeding everyone who came up the stair bane-poisoned eye arrows. I guess there were other solutions (wear cuman armor? Sneak in?) but . . why?
Overall take – make the actual gameplay ( timing blocks and parries; aiming arrows) a bit easier for those of us who aren’t 20 years old with perfect reflexes, but tune down the superiority that accrues as Henry gets endgame gear and stats.