I came back to this game after I got burnt out a year and a half ago. Back then I had three major problems with the gameplay:
1. there was not enough things to do on islands
This has been fixed. There are books, treasures everywhere, all these different items in barrels, cooking spots etc. If your buddy searches for treasure you can spend your time running around the island and you will never run out of things to collect and do which was not the case back then.
2. there was not enough things to do while sailing
This has been fixed as well. I remember times where you had to play that same old melody for 15 minutes because the outpost was far away and there was nothing to do. It was not much fun after several hundred hours. Now we have fishing, cooking and megalodon, kraken, skele ship encounters every few moments. Just holding the harpoon and waiting for a barrel is more fun than anything before. Great job!
3. melee combat was TERRIBLE
Sadly, this is still the case. Back in the alpha I collected data from more than 800 players and presented it here on these forums to Rare so I could convince them nobody likes the lock-on in melee fights. In the next patch the lock-on was gone and for a moment I thought we have maybe saved the combat. I was wrong. The problem with combat is much deeper.
I think the whole combo system must go. There needs to be a new system that is way more responsive and fluid. Sword fighting should be a beautiful dance, clash of blades and test of reflexes. There should at the very least be faster and more responsive block and a parry mechanic.
Also why is fighting skeletons so terrible? Why does every hit feel like hitting wall with a spoon? Compare it to Dark Souls or Diablo where you can feel the weight of your weapon and every swing is so damn satisfying you could be killing these enemies for hours? Only satisfaction I get is when I encounter a low-level skeleton and one shot him. Try to fight a golden skeleton without water it highlights how unsatisfying the combat is. Golden non-rusty skeleton should have huge armor but fighting them even in the shiny form should be fun – yet it is not. There needs to be more impact to every swing, perhaps weak spots, or some other mechanic you can utilize (maybe the aforementioned parry). The fatigue after combo/heavy strike must go. Either balance it in a different way or introduce stamina. Satisfying combat consists of mechanics, animations, and sound. Sound design must reflect the new weighty combat too.
This game fixed almost every flaw it used to have, and this is one of the few remaining and perhaps the biggest one. Check the suggestions, there is like 5 other threads on the frontpage talking about cutlass problems or PvP melee problems – that’s just a symptom of fundamentally flawed melee combat model. You can try to balance the damage forever, but the truth is – it will never be truly good before it is reworked.
