I’m going to actually start off by saying that my most frustrating thing is the number of things that you can’t get at all in the game. Most flawless sets of armor are completely unobtainable, cause only about 5 (I think) named armorers spawn. And this just highlights the lack of gear and weapon balancing. But everyone complains about that all the time, so I’ll save my text.
Throwing weapons must stack. Without stacking, they are useless.
Archery’s numbers honestly seem like they should be fine, but the mechanics are so awkward and slow that it is impossible to actually hit a player, so the arrows could kill in a single hit and still be terrible. Take a serious look at making an implementation of archery like Mount and Blade has. The first second has the damage ramp up to full, hold and max damage and accuracy for .25 seconds or so, then have accuracy diminsh slowly at first, ramping down to a forced release at 4-5 seconds after starting. And let us cancel the shot by using either the other attack button or the special action key. Arrows need to go much faster as well.
Also, the “zero” of the ranged weapons should stay constant, because it really seems like it moves around depending on something, maybe the distance to whatever the pointer is on, and that really wouldn’t help if that is the case.
For melee, I have to agree with most people’s opinion that spears are OP as hell. They a have more range, which is fine, but the nice animations mean that they end up with good DPS despite lower damage than the other 2H weapons. Also, having the best range and stagger is just not a good idea. You need to be able to get to a spear user. Removing the stagger would be a good start, and I would remove the armor pen from the weapons as well. Although I suspect that this would be an appropriate nerf, if it goes to far, than add the effect where having attacks shield blocked does not cause stagger. Focus on enhancing a more reserved playstyle.
For the Two handed sword, add a special action. Give it a parry, that consumes stamina unlike shields, and staggers the attacker.
Hammer is so slow most walls can dodge the attacks. It really needs to be sped up a fair bit.
Single handed sword heavy attack 1 needs to have all the wait time cut from it, and the second heavy also could use a speed up. Those attacks are so slow they’re almost bad in PvE, forget even trying to use them against a player.
I haven’t used much axe or mace, so no comment, however, please fix shields. I don’t know if it is server lag or what but shields only occasionally block, and I have had entire fights where I attempt to use a shield and every hit goes right past it.
Additional opinions, all legendary quality gear (Silent Legion armor, Kingslayer weapons) should require starmetal, not hardened steel.
When it comes to bases and raiding, combat building needs to not be possible. Black Ice building are way to cheap. On the other hand, gates need to be at least 3x the strength of doors, given the size they mandate you build to and the scale of the weak point they currently create compared to putting doors in.
One raid tactic that needs to go away is the build a infinitely high tower and jump tactic. Just keep increasing falling damage past 100% please.
The base defense method where you just stack doors forever is very annoying - and expensive - to attack, especially if it is in a ruin where you can’t go around through a wall. So add a battering ram that can keep being moved up and reused to smash down stacks of doors. Or create a “sapping tool” that is fairly heavy but deals really good damage to doors and walls.