I did a bit of testing and i could feel a difference! Looking straight down and swinging was definitely fixed, you atomatically lock on now. it seems you adjusted the forward angle when Henry’s swings lock on, which seems around 45° to the sides.
Unfortunately this is still possible, now you just have to turn away from your foe completely, like 90°, you start your swing, then you flick it to the target, it hits everytime and again circumvents the lockon mechanic and the enemy defenses.
These regular attacks you do when not locked on, seem to be 100% unblockable by the enemy AI, but as soon as you lock on, they start feeling it and block almost all your attacks. The AI seems to need the player locked on to them or at least facing towards them, to function properly, like detecting weapon positions is why they block so well most of the time. I am most certain the problem stems from the fact that the regular attacks have only this ‘general’ direction which the AI can’t detect and thus getting hit every single time by it.
My suggestions:
Lower the strength of the freemove attacks on aggro targets, by let’s say 50%. Once you draw aggro from an NPC these attacks become less powerful. this will discourage players from exploting it.
The attacks should also be blockable by aggro targets, or blocked everytime so the player knows flailing around won’t get you anywhere, like Captain Berdnard clearly tells you in the Combat Tutorial!
If i am correct with the direction thingy, maybe add a new direction to the AI so they can detect if you try the wild flailing tactic on them and shut it down.
But to be honest, these technique require more skill then the combat itself, so I am cool with it