I just took on three guys in plate armor and won. The fight lasted thirty real-life minutes, but it was nonetheless very enjoyable and challenging, and this is precisely what I was looking for. No more of this “god mode” nonsense, PLEASE! I still stand by my position pre-patch: the game was insultingly easy and every time I one-hit killed an opponent wearing armor I cringed hard and wanted to quit right then and there. Now I’m actually enjoying it a little more, but still feel it is quite easy. Before the patch, I absolutely hated seeing my character overpower literally everybody he fought. It made combat very trivial and more of an annoyance rather than a life-death situation as it is supposed to be! In fact, I even purposefully avoided unlocking any perks relating to strength just because combat was too easy! I’ll forgive unarmored bandits being easy kills, because even in real life any bladed-weapon will kill someone who is unprotected relatively quickly, but here I’ll need to define unarmored. I only consider an opponent to be unarmored when he is wearing absolutely nothing besides his basic clothing such as a tunic, a set of hoses, and a pair of shoes. Nothing beyond that. Even a padded gambeson provided significantly greater protection against slash and blunt damgage over regular clothing, and I want and expect that to be reflected in game. A cut (with a cutting weapon such as a sword) against an opponent wearing a gambeson should not instant kill or significantly damage an opponent in one-hit. Try using a knife and cutting layered linen in real life and see how hard it actually is. Also, please stop using this “Henry is just aiming for the gaps in armor” excuse, because even inside those weak-points in plate armor your opponent should be wearing a set of chainmail armor and then a gambeson underneath. Try stabbing through riveted chainmail and see how easy it is to actually penetrate though…yeah.
I can provide a suggestion on how to possibly address this: Gambesons wear out in real life the more you beat on them. If your opponent is wearing just a gambeson for protection, then we could possibly see Henry’s initial attacks doing low damage against him until he is able to wear down the condition of the enemy AI’s armor below 30%. Afterwards I’ll accept his attacks being more effective.
TLDR; more challenging combat = more fun. If balancing to compensate for less-skilled or low-leveled players is needed, then simply provide less-skilled and poorly-equipped (no armor) opponents earlier on in the game, and then slowly add more difficult opponents as the player progresses through the main questline (notice I didn’t say with his level, although even that should be taken into consideration). I want and expect a fight against a well-armored opponent to be a lengthy and challenging ordeal, which is how it is SUPPOSED to be!
So yes, I actually am going to use the “get good” line here, because I feel as though nearly all of the people complaining about combat being “impossible” are trying to approach the game with a casual playstyle and inevitably want it dumbed down. If I can take on three plate-armor knights who are skilled enough to successfully parry every like 3rd attack I threw at them, and still win, then it is very clear combat is not “impossible.” Far from actually. As I said, I still think it’s quite easy, although thankfully not as easy as before.
But, if all else fails…then a difficulty option could be considered, with the lower settings being more “gamey” and the higher ones more realistic and hard.
